More deep thoughts come to you this morning, courtesy of the passing scene. While a cornucopia of passions ebb and tide steadily atop the rapidly rising river of ambient sociopolitical bullshit threatening to flood so deeply as to submerge my junk, one in particular glares at me with a glazed over, lazy eye. One specific trope - to which any one of the thousand gripes against the zeitgeist of the day could be appended - reaches out from the flock and speaks to me in a hushed and intimate tone; We're coming for you.
While you, the reader, and myself, ostensibly fancy ourselves of the species aficionado automobili, and perhaps sub-species moneypitus-hyundai, we routinely find ourselves using our cars as a frame of reference around which orbit things like our credit score, marital stability, and, from time to time, our swag.
It is this socially degenerative term which brings us to exhibit A for today's grand assertions. Watch the following video - in full - if you don't complete the entire video we will be told.
Following such an assault on the senses one is left immediately following the theatrical curtain with more than a few unfulfilled desires; in short the author of this video leaves us with an appetite we never knew we had. Our sexual appetites must be whet.
What drives a man (child) to purchase a perfectly good sport(y) car and perform the following 'modifications' -
- cut springs
- gutted interior (sound system remains w/ no insulation)
- knockoff GTR wheels in Crayola Green
- snowplow-placement front plate
- just-for-show NOS-Brand nitrous bottle
- four-foot length of pipe attached to the shifter (this may have been a re-purposed dual-ended dildo)
- Not-quite-Bosozoku exhaust
- The Burger King on the headrest
- failure to complete a single proper donut w/ an open-differential car
- Film yourself pumping gas while dressed in your sexy Snapback & Hollister (a.k.a. "The South Orange County")
Lets make peace with God for just a moment before proceeding; you (we) are all attention-whores. Just admit it. It's why we spend all our money and spare time building cars. That being said, the vast majority of us would like to think that at the end of the proverbial day, we've got something of worth to show for our time. For example; by the end of June I'd like to think that a few thousand dollars dumped into my motor for a fully built longblock (with the correct main studs this time) will go on for many thousands of miles to prove it's worth as a fun-loving machine that just won't allow itself to be parked on a clear day.
We would all like to think that when we park our car at a show or a cruise, as we stand there attempting to look as uninterested as possible - that all eyes are on our car. We'd like to think the wrench time we've put in not only equals fun times for us when we're behind the wheel, but that it also equals a certain status; a certain respect is attributed to the work done.
As with any other social hobby, invariably a requisite percentage of the population succumbs to the craving for social status and takes what appears to be the easy way; begging, borrowing & cheating their way to the appearance of work done by way of shortcuts, counterfeits, lies and deception. A specific social status craved by untold thousands in the aftermarket automotive arena is the age-old notion of fast women & fast cars. As evidenced by our test subject's video title, this is an explicit aim.
The disease that threatens to spread across any car community - since perhaps the dawn of Pep Boys and the Honda Civic - is not just the ricer; it is the far more destructive and lethal poser. Like any good cancer, posers first attack the easily placated fashionistas in any car community with their attempt at panache and socially relevant trendiness. Common to posers of all eras however is the virus of low quality workmanship and complete lack of education.
In his effort to sell the local eligible female population on the notion of his dick, this man has not only made himself look ridiculous, but he's systematically and purposely taken a perfectly good automobile and set it up for failure and damage. You may not think you've ever done that to your car, but stop and think for a second about where you might have cut corners or jumped to a conclusion. Dutifully examine this poor man, think of where you might have gone wrong not nearly so egregiously as he has.
This kid has literally ripped out much of his interior, including his arch trim inside the door. He's attempting to appear as though he has built a car with which one races, because obviously racecar drivers strip everything that doesn't go boom out of their cars. However he has left his audio speakers in, and the rest of the forward interior & crashpad. Doing this has saved him perhaps 10-20lbs in vehicle weight. End result:Not faster. Just more toolish.
Lets examine the 'functional' parts of the car. Instead of spending a whopping one hundred dollars on at least cheap drop springs for his car, Elmo here took a hacksaw to his OEM springs. These springs are rolled and pressed into shape to produce a specific spring rate as a single piece of metal, and the dampers & struts on the car are valved to match them and the vehicle's weight characteristics. Therefore hacksawing these springs results in dampers which are unable to control the altered springs, springs which are unequal at all four corners and all behave a little differently, and springs which no longer seat properly with a flat mating surface as per factory spec.
This means early damper death and bouncing around on the road like a 1980s Civic with proudly blown out struts.
We've installed nitrous oxide, I see, on the car, which may or may not actually be hooked to le engine. The candy blue bottle of course means you have an instant verbal credit line with the rest of the hipster tuners the moment you step into the Wienerschnitzel. The five foot section of pipe we've cut and mounted to our shift linkage no doubt intended to convey the image of what the casual observer might think is a "rally" shifter but in reality is either a sequential gearbox tap-shifter in a real-life(TM) race car or a large handbrake handle used by drift drivers to allow quick and close operation of multiple levers while getting thrown around.
Today however, it's not only just for show, it's in the wrong place, on the wrong type of transmission. So it's a poor show.
Next up we've got our audio system; undoubtedly a major component of the automotive experience is the part where your machine on wheels is also your personal stereo set. By removing one's interior however, this stereo set now has just about nothing to cushion it's otherwise mediocre output range and as a result - with no sound insulation or quieting equipment - your car not only sounds like shit on the outside (thanks to the exhaust you made with the help of a drunk rat-rodder) but out from your open windows the audio equipment now pumps the deafening assault of tinny, buzzy, rattle-y nausea out of your car and into the ears of the unsuspecting passing populace.
With all that being done to detract from the practicality of operation with which the car was once endowed, (after engineers & designers around the world spent years fashioning the car to be as such) we've also gone an extra step. The car has been dumped to the pavement. This in and of itself is no crime; verily I say unto you blessed is he that guts out an LS1-swapped Miata and drops it like its hot, yea verily, so also is blessed the Volkswagen driver who layeth frame. But here we have cut our springs by hand in our own garage - lowered the car and proudly displayed to the world that not only our chickenshit exhaust - but also our oil pan is very literally dragging on the pavement.
Note that this driver did in fact rip his oil pan out whilst performing said dick-selling exhibition in public, and upon his milkshake bringing all his oil to the pavement, directed his fury and ire at Hyundai for not designing a better oil pan placement into the motor's configuration.
Of the man's choices in fashion, we shall not further hold congress, if only to remember that as we look to this man as a shining guidepost showing us the path away from fraud and failure - people have been shot for lesser offenses than wearing a Burger King Crown on your headrest around town in public. Immajussayin.
This is to say nothing of the driver's inability to properly exhibit the car in a public parking lot; for surely aCadillac need room to roll. As we try desperately to fade this YouTube video from memory and set out upon Facebook and Google Maps to locate his place of residence so as to ensure further GPS navigation routes give this car a wide berth - a very important lesson for any 'car person' can be taken away.
You are what you do. Don't be a half-assed shit that passed for a Vienna Sausage about an hour before it really started to stink.
