Car enthusiasts modify their cars to stand out, to show off their personality. Unless they’ve got a super rare, practically one-of-a-kind vehicle (no one’s driving around a 250 GTO every day, I’m fairly certain), people will seek methods to make their car easily identifiable inside a parking structure. Even drivers of mundane grocery getters like a Toyota Corolla are wont to spend money to make it cooler than it really is. I know this, because I had one.
More importantly, car modifications are done in search of more speed and better performance. On one hand it makes perfect sense because who doesn’t want faster straight-line speeds and quicker cornering numbers? On the other hand, if you count all of the money spent to improve a particular car’s performance (and looks), wouldn’t it be more prudent to, combined it together with the car’s original price, buy a different model that’s simply faster?
Then again, I would argue most of anything related to the automobile is based emotionally, rather than logically. How many times have someone asked us for car purchasing advice only to go and not buy the one we recommended? Look at the popularity of heavy sports utility vehicles and pickup trucks: how often are those drivers hauling around enough people and gear to justify the extra volume?
Obviously, purchasing decisions aren’t logical, and therefore I don’t expect car modifications to be, on the contrary, completely utilitarian. The ‘Hellaflush’ and ‘StanceNation’ styling trend that’s been with us for a decade now (and don’t seem to be abating anytime soon) - I totally understand it, even if it’s far from my cup of coffee.
I’m known for my pragmatism amongst my friends, so it’s no surprise that I’ve gotten away from vehicle modifying since moving on from the Corolla. Admittedly, the Toyota was much too plain and unsightly for me to not invest some funds to lessen the enormous wheel-gap and give it a proper set of wheels - among other items. Since then, my motto has been if I want to go faster, I buy a faster car. Granted, my subsequent cars are built on decidedly sporting platforms, so there wasn’t any immediate impetus to improve on things.
Presently I own a 911 GT3, one of the best race-car-for-the-road platforms in existence; because honestly, we’re simply chasing after that race car aesthetic anyways. Cars slammed to the ground, body kits, wheels tucked neatly within a wheel-well, and adding horsepower: these are all inspired by motorsport, the look and sound of pure-bred racing machines (that’s why we like loud exhausts).
Instead of modifying the WRX STI and then the MX-5 to chase that aesthetic, I bought an entire car instead. Problem solved.
No shots were thrown away today.