popo

All my life I'd lived in cities where pickup trucks were owned only by folks like carpenters, plumbers, and construction workers. Now that I live just outside LA, I see that pickup trucks are the choice of teenagers, insurance salesmen, accountants, and dentists. It's certainly funny looking but I guess it's something I'll have to get used to.

But why the soup-up job? Mini wheels, big wheels, GIANT wheels, wide wheels, stickers on windows, flames painted on hoods, booming music, screeching their tires in parking lots.

So what's the deal? I'm used to chuckling at cars & trucks like this but now it's all I see. Help me understand it.

89transam

Because it makes the car look better to the owner.

__________________
I'd rather be rich than stupid.

zwik

I never understood putting 10 grand into a car to modify it, unless it was a hobby. I'd rather put the mod money into a better car. That's me though. As 89transam says some people want to make their car look better. And sometimes those owners don't have the same tastes that we do.

On the other hand a modded pick-up truck doesn't make sense to me...those things are for haulin' stuff in my opinion.

popo

I couldn't help but laugh when I read this. I have asked a few people why everyone seems to enjoy pickup trucks and every answer I've gotten has been the exact same "for haulin' stuff". When I ask what is it that they haul, they say "I dunno, stuff".

Spyder_Venom

Fuction over form......

I have wide tires and grand sport rims on my car on my car - it needs more traction
I have a roll cage in my car - I need safty
I have numbers on my car - required for racing


what you will not find in my car is NAAWWS stickers, loud pipes, chrome *bling bling* rims, fender flairs or bull whip attana's... LOL


For real now, I understand what you are talking about. I don't understand it myself. Its like big cock sydrome all over again. Everything I own execpt my race car is stock... looking

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The local track whore

Tech

desire to be an individual. doesn't matter if you want your car to go 10 seconds, have a 10" lift, or have a 10 foot wing, people mod their cars to signify individuality. it's personalizing it. just an inherent desire of humanity.

not to say that everyone wants to put mods on their car, but everyone wants to be an individual in some way or another, some people choose to do that with their car.

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-Tim-

~I swear sometimes i feel like i'm married to a child.
~You better watch who you're calling a child, Lois, cause if i'm a child than you know what that makes you? a pedophile. and i'll be damned if i'm going to stand here and be lectured by a pervert.

extracool64

^ Damn straight Spyder.

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A car with more gears than cylinders is not a real car.

shakran

Well if I get a $2,000 used civic and dump 10 grand into it, I have one HELL of a race car. If I get a $12,000 car it won't be nearly as good on the track because a lot of that $12,000 goes for non-race stuff, like street suspension, stock intake/header/exhaust, no supercharger, etc.

Cynthetiq

it's been happening since the first set of fuzzy dice have been sold... all about making it yours

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Kruz

That about says it all
some people can drive a Yugo and be happy to have anything that will get them from point A to point B!
some people have to soup up their Honda to the max.. and its not about getting to point B its about how cool you look getting there.........

popo

It's just funny how there is no in between with this. Some people seem to think of it as epitome of cool, others wouldn't be caught dead in the passenger seat of a souped up car.

No ambivilency here...

Kruz

hehe.. My Blazer is bone stock except for the TOOL sticker on the back window

mazdarx

I modify my car to make it more fun to drive

tinfoil

I understand the need, but it gets to be too much when you see kids with 4ft wings and 1" clearance body kits on an otherwise stock Neon... I mean, damn. Spend some of that cash on some nice suspension tweaks or some engine mods. Or maybe a girlfriend or college.

I drive a GTP. Ya, it cost more than a souped up civic, and a souped up civic of equal value may even smoke it, but ya know what? Even given my somewhat large 6'2" 230lb frame, my ass and shoulders fits far more comfortably in my leather seats than they do in a relativly cramped civic.

I like a nicely moded car, don't get me wrong. Mine happened to come stock with the body kit and small wing. Most of the smaller cars look good with mild modding, but let's not get ridiculous.

I have NEVER understood the need to put lights underneath one's car. Gah.

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BooRadley

You can dump $10,000 in an ECONOMY car which was not engineering to perform on a sports car level. There is fundamental differences between ECONOMY cars and SPORTS cars, namely, suspension geometry, handling characteristics, and more durable components. How the hell do you think you charge very little for an economy car? Put on cheap ass components. A sports car comes out of the box ready to handle at higher speeds than civics and metros IN THE HANDS OF A TRAINED DRIVER. If you can't drive a RWD manual car, then yes, it is useless to get a true sports car.Yeah, you may pay more for non race stuff, but you remember aftermarket parts companies are in the game for profit. Turbos and superchargers are ridiculous amounts of cash. If you souped up a civic for $12,000 total , you would not beat a $12,000 Nissan 300Z in anything. Cept maybe winning trophies for outward appearance, as a $12k 300Z would be pretty beaten up . But they do exist.

shakran

Yeah, OK. Suspension geometry (civics until recently had 4 wheel double wishbone suspension). Handling characteristics (this is influenced by steering gemonetry. The 88-91 civic/crx has long been hailed as one of the best handling cars on the road). Durable components. Hell man, we're comparing nissans and hondas. They're BOTH durable as hell. I know several people with 200k and 300k mile civics. These "economy" cars were still built to last.

And to lump a civic and a metro into the same category demonstrates a shocking lack of knowledge about those two vehicles. They had pretty much nothing in common.

BTW, for $10,000 in mods, you can get an integra motor, JR supercharger, street / race brakes (by that I mean slotted rotors plus porterfield R4S pads - the ones that work well on the track without being unsafe for the street), high performance (yoko AVS ES100) tires, race suspension and a mugen LSD into your civic, and probably still have some cash left over.

Also BTW when I talk about modding cars, I'm not talking about rice crap. Towelbar wings, body kits, stickers, neons, clear tails. . none of that crap sees my car.

You know, it irritates the crap out of me when people start bitching about "real" sports cars. How do you define that? RWD only? Guess that leaves the WRX out of the picture. Lamborghini Diablo is out too if it's got the AWD option. Or do you define it by marque - Hondas aren't sports cars but Porsches are? Wanna pit an S2000 or an NSX against a 914 some time?

The SCCA has a lot of front wheel drive cars that race in its events, including civics and CRX's. They have specific classes to put these cars in. Note that SCCA stands for SPORTS CAR club of America.

My point is that yeah, a stock civic may not be a sports car, but I'd argue that if you sink $10,000 into intelligently selected go-fast mods for the car it BECOMES a sports car.

89transam

I dunno, 12k can get you a pretty nice twin turbo 300z with around 70k miles noadays.

And again, yes it would be possible for a civic with 12 grand to beat a 300z in lots of stuff. If you bought a nice clean 300z Twin turbo lets pretend it costs 12 so you have no money left. Now buy a beat up civic, mabye a slight wreck. Lets say it costs 4k. Supercharge it and cut every peice of the car off that you can, everything that is un- nessacary comes off , like doors etc. Get some lightweight rims and stuff and youd probobly be owning corvettes.

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WarWagon

You only see the tards with stickers because the legitimately fast cars a) look fairly stock, and b) run what they brung at a real race track, instead of showing off in front of 9 year olds at the local dairy queen.

Honestly, I don't have a problem with building a car for looks. Hell, I plan on getting a 60's Pontiac, doing a full out custom and laying the thing on the ground with some 20's. The problem lies in the fact that they THINK that what they does looks good, and that they THINK that they're fast, when in reality, most would probably pee their pants if they were riding in a car or truck that only ran 12's.

Jeff

The most utterly ridiculous thing about it, in my opinion, is that they soop up their cars so much, to make them "race cars" or whatever, and they just drive them around the city. They don't race them. That irritates the hell out of me. Makes sense if you actually do go down to the race track and race, but to put all this time and money into it so you can get to work or the store faster is crazy. And why people think the "rice racer" image is cool is beyond me. Don't they realize they're the object of so much ridicule?

__________________
For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.
--Charles Bukowski

Atomic Pinkie

what i love is the WRX crase, especially thoose that hail the STi as the coming of christ.

sad fact of the matter is, the Golf R32, with comparable tires to the WRX would hold up to it, mind you, the WRX is a RALLY CAR and is a bit more powerful with 300/300

The recent test shows that its only the tires keeping the R32 back.

It was only a second behind two cars with professional rally style tires.

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Where dem bitches at?

shakran

I drove a WRX. Nice acceleration. Pretty good handling. OK brakes. The shifter was godawful. That'd be the first thing I replaced if I bought one. Not that I'd buy one

stingc

I have a Corvette that I plan to soup up. It was built during the smog years in the 70's, so it doesn't have as much power as I'd like. Its very cheap to do engine mods, and makes the car much more fun. Despite that, even my stock watered down engine make 3 times the torque of a Civic engine. And my car looks a lot better, and most importantly, feels a lot better to drive than any economy car. I've driven a wide range of vehicles, and can say that there are good reasons Civics are as cheap as they are. I can't understand how anyone can find them inspiring.

0001

You also have to stop for gas every 3 blocks stingc

stingc

True true

RaDiAn

Great Pic ...what a laugh....... I like to go to car shows and look at everyone's ride. Myself I don't plan on moding my ride. Point A to Point B!! That's it.....

BooRadley

Oh, I know absolutely nothing about cars whatsoever. Nevermind the fact that I'm in the society of automotive engineers and have been a fabricator/engine guy for the Formula SAE collegiate design competition. That equates no knowledge of cars whatsoever. I don't design these vehicles but probably will co-design next years' car.

Congratulations. I know people with 300k on ford escorts and chevy S10s, both with original engines. This is not an accomplishment anymore, even for domestic car companies. You are more likely to wreck a car before it runs out of useful life. It boils down to care in maintenance and driving style. If you race something, you are going to tear it up. Period. Components can and will fail.

So have many, many small cars. And you brung up an interesting point, by mentioning the SCCA. Triumph Spitfires are all hideous winners at SCCA tracks. The unmodified US versions produce 65-70 horsepower on a good day. How can they do well, being so outdated and underpowered and not uber-lightweight ( S2000 is a much better modern car ) ? They are very light, and suitable for winning on the very tight low-speed SCCA tracks. Hell, I have never seen anybody do a faster lap time than a 125cc shifter cart on a SCCA track, even porsches and race-only supras.

The point being? If the only thing you consider is SCCA racing, then a race-modified civic could be a far superior race car than 98% of RWD 'sports' cars. If they actually hit a real "track" with a straight longer than 300 feet, then you might actually see a corvette performing at its optimum level. With a 2000 feet straight like many actual tracks have, you can hit serious speeds . A race modified civic would be able to hit good speeds, but sheer horsepower is the key in high speed situations. The cars weight makes less of a difference as wind resistance increases WAY faster than rolling resistance.

Noone ever said honda couldn't make sports cars. The NSX is an overpriced hunk of crap with civic parts-bin interior but it is a solidly performing car. The S2000 is a downright awesome car with very few flaws.

But I'm judging these cars based on what they are sold as. A civic is an economy car. It is classifed as such by every source. In stock configuration, it has low amounts of horsepower and a driveline to suit that. I doubt a stock transmission/rear differential would enjoy a 240 hp race engine running 8000 rpm for long periods. If you want to spend the time and money to completely gut a civic , go right ahead. I've never seen conclusive proof about race-only civics performance, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. $10,000 doesn't go a far way. But once you start swapping engines that's a very expensive proposition for a car that costs $14,000 new. Especially when then engines run $2000+. The supercharger would be be $3000 alone. Would you run stock fuel injection? $10k is a far cry from creating a full sized race car, unless you have an absolutely full shop and employees and all the time in the world to correctly tune a supercharger setup. Fuck, a good ECU would run $3500. You can mod out any car in the world, it's just a question of time and money. But don't you dare tell me race modding a civic(or any car) is either cheap or not time consuming. One of my friends races chevettes. This is the easiest circle-track class for anyone to get into, as the engines have to remain stock . It still took him every weekend for several months to get the car race ready.

I still DO NOT see the point in dumping so much time or money in any car , unless it is your livelihood. I am a die hard car guy, but some of the stuff people do makes no sense whatsoever to me. I'll stick to watching racing on TV or enjoying my street car for what it is. Driving around a gutted interior civic with a hand grenade of an engine is not my idea of fun. Nor is towing it to an SCCA event.

89transam

Im starting to think the same I do beleive. Currently I have a 89 Firebird and a slight chunk of change in it. (engine,tranny,some suspention). Its not that fast, but its faster than stock. (Mid 13's)

Now my bro just picked up a little ford contour and lemme tell you that thing is one hellava car. It gets great gas mileage, if fun to drive, looks decent and is overall just comfortable.

Makes me want to sell my car, I mean, whats the point really? I mean spinning the tires , doing doughnuts and going uber-fast is fun, but its just not worth the headaches and the drain on your bank account

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cj22009

I guess people just like to personalize there vehicles

Loup

Because not everyone is the same. Simple.

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BooRadley

I got a friend who has $42k into an integra. He's had two different ECUs, one @ $2800 and one at $5000. Has a turbo and ALOT of other mods. Has one of the biggest intercoolers I've ever seen. The problem with this car is... after all that money, it still looks like ass because of a botched up job cutting the front end up to fit this huge ass intercooler. It's ridiculous.

LittleOralAnnie

I'm all for making your ride look as stylish as possible with your own unique touches. The only addition I don't like that looks totally retarded is the wheels that are entirely to large for the body of the car. You know the ones I mean, they stick out about 3 inches from the wheel well and also the tires that life your vehicle higher than it should be.

I always see this older guy driving around town in something that looks like an older style Camaro with big ass tires on it. The car sits off the ground a good 3-4 feet. The car is smooth but the tires look stupid.

WarWagon

Air shocks are the work of the devil. Have one of those guys a town over, 69 camaro, crappy little smallblock, with the back end jacked up to a ridiculous height. I guess some people like spinning their back tires. I personally prefer to lift the front.

etla

'Cause it's coooollll! This is one showy mod I actually like. My ne Dakota will have lights on the frame. Though those are going to be high power off road rock lights for night crawling

thadon

Stock unmodified cars are just ok

you have to make your car stand out from the rest ... it needs to look better and be faster

Put better rims and tires on it to make it look different and you feel better about your car.

Put a sound ststem in it and you will like driving it more b/c of the better sound quality.

It is all about the improvements.

I drive a 2003 Dodge Dakota QuadCab pickup ... if I had the extra money I'd put a supercharger on my 4.7L v8 engine to make my truck even faster .... why? ... because I love speed.

89transam

Why would you need two differnt ecus anyway? Cant he use one for race and use the stock one to daily drive it?

5 K thats alot.....Accel DFI is like 1500

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I'd rather be rich than stupid.

tfin

If you know what you are doing you can get a megasquirt. They are a make it your self and program it your self stand alone fuel computer. Total cost of one is about $200 or so. I have a friend who is currently assembling one. Son once he gets it running we will see how it goes.

As foar as moding goes, there are also nuts like me.

I currently hava a 95 neon for daily driving. It gets great gas milage and was dirt cheep. I have only put seats from a beter trim neon in it to make my fat ass feel better and I put a different neon muffler on it to give me about 1-3 hp more. It was all I needed and wanted because I live in a very hilly county so the extra 3 hp was all I needed for the up hil climbs.

I also have a 79 ford LTD lowrider. It has hydros and the whole 9 yards. I am currently cutting the top off and learning how to do body work on it. This car makes absolutl no practical sence but it is just fun. Fun, fun, fun. Another reason I have this car is becasue it is the cheapest of all my car wants.

I also want a truck (71 chevy) to haul cars with. That is my stuff.
I want a 91 eagle talon to do hornet class dirt track racing with.
I would like a turbo'd neon just for the hell of it.
I want another talon for street use. I had one and sold it, insurance sucked.
I want to restore a 70 camaro and put a twin turbo 350 in it.

I am just a car nut. I really enjoy working with my hands. I love powerfull cars, but it is not a penis envy thing. Hel I am perfectly happy driving a neon. For me it is almost like a self satisfaction thing. I can look at a car I worked on and say, see I did that. And the time spent working on cars with friends is pricless.

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gggd

i see plenty of talk, but not enough pics! post some pics of ur cars ppl!

niner89

Modding a car is reaping the true potential, it dosent have to be your livelihood. manufacturers restrict their cars out of the factory, look at all German cars, except for Porsche, they're electronically limited to 155mph. Not to mention restrictive programs that limit things like turbo boost and torque curves. You mod a car to drive it like it was meant to be driven.

nitrorclover

As for why people have lifted trucks, a lot of them may look dumb on the road, but on a trail, you need to have it lifted. Sure, there are a lot of people out there who just do it for the looks, but a lot of the reason why cars get modded is so that they do perform better than a stock car.