At first it may seem like blasphemy. Japanese tuner Liberty Walk takes gorgeous, iconic supercars, cuts them up, and rebuilds them in its own lowered, widened image. Who has the right to do that?
There are only a finite number of these great works of wheeled art on the planet, after all. Shouldn’t they all be left as they came out of the factory? How are you going to improve on Marcello Gandini or Sergio Pininfarina?
And yet, they do.
Liberty Walk has taken its styling Sawzall to the Ferrari F40, 512, and F8 Tributo; to the Lamborghini Miura, Countach, Huracan, Aventador and Murcielago; to Nissan R32s, 33s, and 34s too numerous to count.
And almost universally, they look cooler. Way cooler as the kids may say.
Where It Came From
Liberty Walk is the creation of Wataru Kato, who started out as something of a car dealer and importer in Nagoya. Kato-san founded the company in 1993, at first importing European BMWs and AMGs. After that, he did American cars like the Hummer H2. It was only after those cars that he started to make body kits. Things snowballed from there.
Wataru now personally owns around 20 cars, including the abovementioned Ferrari F40 and 458, a Lamborghini Murcielago and Aventador and many old school retro Japanese cars, all of them customized the Liberty Walk way.
That is, they’ve been lowered, widened with Liberty Walk fender flares, and usually have a big rear wing balanced out by a low front air dam.
This may sound like a recipe for disaster, at least aesthetically, as the work of so many tuners you may have seen can attest. So the fear is real.
And yet, Liberty Walk has done it with such artistic elegance and aggressive gusto that the cars come out looking better—completely new creations that you can tell were once their former selves but are now somehow better.
Controversy!
Or maybe you don’t think that. Most references to Liberty Walk cars include the word “controversial.”
Last weekend Liberty Walk came to Los Angeles to a collaborative show put on with wrap specialist Inozetek in Alhambra. Owners and fans descended upon the shop with their own cars and with Liberty Walk cars.
LW brought with them a new Nissan R34 GT-T. There were also privately owned Corvette C8s, a McLaren 720S, a Porsche 911, and any number of other cool cars.
Signing autographs all day was Toshi Nishio, CEO of LB Holdings. Mr. Kato was not present. I asked Toshi-san about the Ferrari F40 they crafted, which was lowered, had the fenders cut off, and now sports a Liberty Walk wide-body kit. What is it like tearing into multi-million dollar classics like that?
“At the beginning, we are scared about that, yeah. But right now I feel it’s normal.”
Really? Normal?
What Is Normal, Anyway?
“Of course, I respect Ferrari and I love F40, but we need something special, or something different. So that’s why I thought, ‘Yeah, we make a wide body.’ So we just want to put a wide body kit to the F40, but I respect the line and the shape, I still respect Ferrari.”
How about the Miura?
“We changed the whole thing. The Miura (we created) is, of course, a wide body, and we put (on) the air box and the wheels and tires and exhaust. We changed the whole kit, front and back.”
And all those R32s and R34s, what’s their approach to those?
“We are Nissan guys. So we did an R34, R35, and also Kenmeri (the second iteration of the Skyline GT-R, introduced in 1972), and Hachiroku (first-gen GT-R). We love a Nissan.”
What do they do to the Nissans?
“Wide body, lower, big wing, like a GT wing.”
Who does the design?
“Our founder, Mr. Kato, he has always some ideas. We (also) have a design team then, so just conversation, and they make something.”
The team includes a young guy named Ryo Kawamura. He was present that day but “did not speak English” and we don’t speak Japanese. So whatever design secrets he holds will go unknown for the moment.
But the design work of Liberty Walk is now world famous. Have a look at the gallery and decide for yourself. Then let us know what you think in the comments.
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