Celica Forums Install Guides and Technical Articles Information and Articles Replica Body Kits

Do NOT support companies that rip-off body kit designers by producing counterfeit, aka "Replica" versions.

Top manufactures such as Veilside and Kaminari spend a lot of time and hard work designing and manufacturing quality products with superb fitment.

You would hate to invest $20,000 to $50,000 on a high quality body kit design & production - and within a week after releasing it, a schmuck duplicates your product and sells it for a fraction of the cost (usually $40/sides to $120/front & rear for each piece, with a markup of at least $175 to $250, respectably). Not only is he taking a cut away from your hard work by using inferior materials, but because often his parts have poor fitment, they look bad when painted/installed to a customers vehicle - often times, giving the genuine manufacture a bad name.

If you were Veilside and saw persons asking for counterfeits of your design and others telling their peers to "buy a replica version because it is cheaper", how much longer would you support that community? You probably wouldn't. Some manufactures continually produce innovative products to keep them ahead of the curve. Sometimes manufactures keep cutting their manufacturing quality so they can compete *OR* they offer their products in higher-quality urethane or fiberglass version which the knock-off companies cannot easily duplicate. But usually they just stop designing AND selling products for that particular vehicle.

Have you ever wondered why Veilside hasn't already produced a body kit for Honda's 7th Gen Civic, released several years ago? Now you know.

Very good point...thats why i got WINGS WEST

Plus why would you want to buy something that the quality is horrible and you will probably spend more money fixed the kit than you would of from the beginning buying the real kit

not free but deffinatley more affordable. when i first saw the veilside kit, i instantly fell in love with it. then once i found the price for an authentic one, my heart was crushed because i knew i could never afford that. and even if i saved that much money from my dead end job, id rather spend that hard earned sum of money elsewhere. with the replicas, i can have that same look my heart so desired at a fraction of the cost. and with that extra money saved, you might even get the kit molded on, which would instantly hide any fitment issues. even authentic kits dont fit 100%

Too bad not everyone can afford a Lamborghini or other exotic. I guess the Lamborghini manufacturer's should lower the prices on them too.

There is a reason why its called a luxury. It means that not everyone can afford that item - so it becomes a LUXURY - such as Veilside is more of a luxury style body kit.

Oh well, at least you know you have a fake, and you are proud to own your fake. I have a "type-r" badge for you at a reasonable price

Very good point Isaac...

I agree though i hope ur proud of ur ripped off body kit. Thats like buying a lamborgini kit for ur celica and sayin its a lamborgini...NO its still the same slow 4 cylinder

Personally id rather have a quality product instead of a ripoff. I was gonna buy a rip off of the trd kit bc it was cheaper and i couldn't find the real one but i decided to go with the real thing instead bc its made of polyeurethane not fiberglass, like the ripoff. Im glad i spent the extra time and money and bought the real trd kit bc ive already hit my bumper and side skirt on a curb. It has minimal paint damage but if it had been fiberglass, it would have been shattered and i would have had to replace the whole thing. Plus the toyota dealer tints the body kit to match the faded paint color of your car.

Whatever floats your boat, me personally I like the VS kit but it is too expensive, so I'd rather opt for the best looking one after that (in my opinion) the Octane or Blitz kit both of which I can afford real ones, so hey I'd be supporting the real companies!!

I think that replicas are both good and bad. Sure it hurts the original company, but it also allows people to afford the kit.

Like someone said, it's like buying a Lamborghini kit for you Celica and calling it a Lamborghini, but there is more to it than that.

Lamborghini and cars of that nature cost a ton because of they are not mass produced. Each car is slowly built to perfection which is why the cost is so high. Many people can not afford theses cars and that is why there are kit cars and even many affordable sports cars, such as the 350Z and even our own Celica.

You could also look at it from another prospective... Lets say you want some Volk wheels, but can't afford them. Instead, you buy some Exel wheels that look like the Volks. Wouldn't that be considered a replica?

I had a replica VS1 kit and wished that I had bought the Authentic VS1 kit because my kit was not the best. That is why I sold it and bought an Authentic Kaminari kit!

Oof, the elitism is strong in this thread. Come on we're Celica owners, not BMW or Benz. We ALL know the Celica is sporty LOOKING and fast LOOKING but it's not truly any of those things. Unless you're against all affordable or generic alternatives to anything (cause the original manufacturer isn't getting the profit), I'd probably take a step off the high horse a bit and not look down on people who don't have thousands of throw away cash. A lot of us work but aren't making much more than slightly above minimum wage, no we can't just find a better job and no we don't have a rich family to mooch off of, the one thing we might take pride in is our car and when it looks nice, you have some jerk who puts his nose up at you if it's not a genuine kit, even if it looks nice.

There are reasons to buy replicas over genuine kits, because there are pros and cons to urethane and fiberglass. I live in Arizona and I'm not sure how a genuine polyurethane kit would hold up in our extreme heat, I don't always have access to a garage and if it gets damaged, I certainly don't have the extra cash to just shell out for another genuine kit. Fiberglass is more fragile but easier to fix and cheaper, my only concern with that is that we also have a lot of rocks here and that might start wearing on it. So I haven't even decided which material would be in my best interest.

Veilside might be genuine but their markup is insane too. Most genuine products have a high markup that is picked almost at random. Watch Shark tank and when people ask them how much their profit is, it's usually like it took them 75 cents to make a product that they sell for $20

Getting mad at people who buy replica kits is like getting mad at ANYONE who buys a bodykit for a Celica or any other "ricey" mods cause the Celica isn't actually fast or a sports car. I've been browsing this forum a lot since I got my Celica and I'm just super surprised to see this elitism here.

Once you compare the fitment and quality of a genuine Veilside body kit (fiberglass) next to a FOB knock off Veilside kit, you'll see what you are paying for. Same goes for Kaminari (poly urethane).

The funny thing is, many of those companies who sell knock off kits cannot even be bothered to use their own photos of what they are selling.

I've seen countless ads on eBay and Amazon for kits at $100 per piece, that are using photos they say are of the body kit product they sell. When the truth is, the photo being used is of a genuine part with zero/minor fitment issues, or a part that has had lots of work done to it, to make it fit perfectly. But 99 times out of 100, the photo they use is of a car they've never seen in person, and the owner doesn't even know their car is being used to hawk some poor knock off.

If your product is so good, create your own photos and use those to sell your product.

edit:
Attached photo is of a replica of a "Blitz Style" front bumper for the Celica. It will not fit unless it is modified and fixed. If this was a genuine product, it wouldn't need to be modified. It would just get prepped, painted, and then installed.

It doesn't fit because the drivers-side headlight shape is uneven. The whole bumper is about a half inche too small all around. This was the result of using a fiberglass mold of the one kit, and then using making another mold of that second kit, and then repeating the whole process again several times -- such as when you make a VHS video copy of a VHS copy of a VHS copy of a VHS copy...etc. Now what you're left with is a replica that doesn't fit the vehicle.

For comparison, here is Genuine Kaminari
https://celicahobby.com/gallery/index.php/category/kit-kaminari-polyurethane

Isaac said there is no genuine Blitz style kits though, so despite what he said, wouldn't this mean it's also a replica or at least a fake and that's why it's not a perfect fit? He also said in his post that "Style = Replica" but then mentioned that it's just a "Style" and not actually a replica cause genuine parts don't exist, quite a headache imo.

I wouldn't ever buy a kit from ebay, if I were to buy a replica, it would at least be from a more trustworthy site.

Thank you for pointing that out. I've just updated my reply to "a replica of a 'Blitz Style' "

Its been over 15 years since this post was originally created. Lots of information could have changed since then.

The Blitz front bumper in the photo I posted was fresh out of container holding over 500 (or over 2,000?) other kit pieces that was dropped off for distribution to other local speed shops. I had the chance in 2003 to be at that container and test fit multiple pieces to a few donor Celica without an prior accidents. I was able to test fit multiple items from that container vs test fitting genuine pieces that the shop was also selling at the time.

The difference was night and day. Genuine fit like a glove. Most of the replica items were crude looking. Lines were not straight. Corners were already cracking. Some had fiberglass laid so thick, they weighed more than double of what they should weigh. And then there was the issue of how some of them were transported... stacked. which would cause (sometimes extreme) warping. Especially if they were tightly stacked, plus stored in a damp container.

All things to think about if you are looking to buy knock-off vs a genuine.