How this works

What this is

Pastel Pistons documents car builds so other people can rebuild them. Every build page lists the exact in-game customization options used, the paint, the wheels and the rest of the setup, in the order the game presents them.

The videos show you the car. This is where you get the parts list.

Premium and community builds

Premium builds get the full treatment. They are shot from every angle so you can spin the car, and each part is mapped to the spot on the bodywork it changes, with a note on why it was chosen. They also get a feature video, which we film and edit ourselves, with the builder talking through their own car in it.

Community builds carry a photo gallery and the same parts list, without the rotation and the mapped parts. If the builder made their own video of the car, it is embedded on the page under their name. That is their video, not one we made.

Both come from the same place. Anybody can send a build, and you choose which kind you are offering when you send it. Every build needs its parts written down, either kind, because a build nobody can rebuild is not what this site is for. What a premium candidate asks for on top is a contact handle, so the video can be arranged, and it is the owner who decides those rather than a moderator.

Availability tags, and why they matter

Not every part exists on every version of the game. A part marked Enhanced only cannot be fitted on the older version, so a build using one cannot be finished there.

Paint works the same way. A custom RGB color is not in the Online palette, which means Online players can get close but not exact. Where that is the case, the build says so.

On a premium build the tags are read out of the game itself, so they cannot drift from what it actually offers. On a community build the person who made it marks them, and a moderator checks them before it goes up.

Which games

Grand Theft Auto, and nothing else. One series covered properly is worth more than five covered thinly, and the game's own workshops, Los Santos Customs, Benny's and Hao's Special Works, are what make a build writeable down in the first place: a fixed list of named options anybody else can pick from.

Grand Theft Auto V is what the catalog holds today. GTA VI gets added once it is out and we know its vehicles, its classes and how its customization actually works. The site is already built to hold a second game, so that is new pages rather than a new site.