Lexus as a corkscrew and a donut: art collective MSCHF twists production crossovers into surreal sculptures

From September 24 to 26, 2026, New York will host MOTOMORPHOSIS, an unusual auto show organized by Japanese premium brand Lexus in partnership with New York art collective MSCHF. The Brooklyn artists, known for their viral provocations, took two production crossovers from the brand and turned them into distorted art pieces, Twisted Car and Circle Car. It is a rare move for the auto industry: a conservative automaker allowed its own flagship vehicles to be radically deformed in the name of experiments with the perception of speed.

The artists used a hybrid Lexus RX 450h+ crossover and an all-electric Lexus RZ 450e SUV as their donor vehicles. Instead of building a familiar prototype, they captured motion in static metal.

The smear frame technique, rendered in a real body

The visual concept draws on classic principles of hand-drawn and 3D animation: squash-and-stretch and so-called smear frames, which animators use to create the illusion of an object moving extremely fast across the screen.

The bodies of the production cars underwent extreme deformation:

• Twisted Car: the hybrid RX 450h+ was twisted like a screw along its longitudinal axis — the hood, windshield, LED lighting and doors stretched and curled into a spiral, as if the car had fallen into a gravitational funnel;
• Circle Car: the electric RZ 450e was bent into an arc, joining the front bumper to the rear into a closed ring that symbolizes an endless circular turn.

The artists themselves call the result Form Cars, contrasting their work with traditional concept cars, Artsy reports. While classic prototypes are built to showcase future driving performance and technology, MSCHF’s sculptures have lost the ability to drive entirely, yet the sensation of speed is frozen forever in their broken forms.

A Chelsea exhibition and a legal disclaimer

The sculptures will go on public display at Chelsea Industrial in New York. The installation is built on contrast: untouched factory RX 450h+ and RZ 450e models will be shown alongside the deformed cars so visitors can examine the scale of the structural changes in detail, architecture publication Designboom reports. Admission to the exhibition is free with advance registration.

The automaker’s lawyers, however, did not forget about safety. In an official Lexus press release, the company specifically stresses that the modified vehicles are purely exhibition art pieces, may be potentially dangerous because the structural integrity of the body’s load-bearing structure has been compromised, and are strictly prohibited from use on public roads.