All over the world, you see different cultures popping up in areas like South Florida with its donks, Supercars in L.A., and Bozo Soku in Japan. The one thing that unites us is our love for badass automobiles.
Trends are everywhere; whether it's fidget spinners or Wordle, there's always a new one just around the corner. When it comes to car culture, things are no different. Some good ones, like pop-up headlights on classic cars or white wall tires, might make a comeback one day. And then there's the bad and the downright ugly that should have no place in this world. Strap yourself, and let's get into it.
9 Wraps On Wraps
To paint or to wrap? These days it seems like there's only one answer. It is as though a sick house of the color paint job with custom graphics is not cool anymore.
Wraps look cool, and it isn't nearly as strenuous work as layering gobs of paint and clearcoat like in a traditional paint job. However, wraps are essentially one huge sticker; if not properly installed, they look ugly. Furthermore, good paint jobs can last for decades, while a wrap job needs you to change it every few years.
8 Stance Obsession
Modifying your car into a stance car is not as cool as everyone thinks. Today it seems like it's almost a requirement to be flashy rolling out of a car meet. From an engineering perspective, stancing a car is not a good idea.
A stance car might look cool to some people, but the changes to the suspension needed to make it possible mean that the car is uncomfortable and handles poorly. The extra stiffness needed in the suspension also strains structural stress points in the car, causing frequent rattling.
7 Pandem Widebody Everything
The fever to be flashy might have replaced the need for uniqueness when modifying cars. It's almost as though you can no longer look in the rear-view mirror without seeing a Pandem wide-body kit. Then that takes up the whole rear-view mirror.
Everything from Skylines to Supras, McLarens to your good old Mustangs, and RX7s to Rangers seem to have a wide-body kit. After seeing them, they all start looking the same, undermining the initial goal of being unique.
6 Hyped Up Prices
Everyone recalls when the legendary Supra cost about $20,000. But not today. Today, you will have to fork out a minimum of five figures to get into these cars. It's not only Supras whose price increased exponentially in the last decade, as Datsun 240Zs, Honda S2000s, and even RX7s have gotten more expensive.
Usually, you would think something older would be a lot less money, but 240Zs are trading hands for more than 350Zs, and now you can find S2000s for the price of Porsche 911.
5 Rolling Coal
You're probably familiar with some content online where people in their massive pickup trucks fill the air with clouds of black smoke. It's annoyingly easy to achieve this with a diesel engine by removing the CATs and running a rich fuel mixture.
These stunts are not that impressive to anyone unless you hate the environment very much. No matter how much you hate the environment, the roads will still be full of fuel-efficient cars, including hybrids and E.Vs.
4 Missile Drifters
At least for most people, what aren't collector items are missile drifters. These instruments of death and destruction come from stripped-out and track-dedicated cars. With these cars, you have to say bye-bye to safety.
Although these missiles should only be used on the track, some people take them to the streets and meets. These builds look ridiculous going for groceries and have trouble going over speed bumps in the neighborhood.
3 Plasti-Dipped Wheels
If you buy a car, don't plasti-dip it unless you know exactly what you're doing. Plasti-dipping isn't always bad and can look sweet when done right. However, doing it right is easier said than done.
A quick search on Google will see people botching plasti-dip jobs left, right, and center. Rarely do plasti-dip look like professional paint jobs. Most newbie modifiers want to try a plasti-dip, and if you have to do it, ensure to follow the right procedures to achieve a clean effect.
2 Tiktok Wannabes Acting Smarter Than Car Guys
This group of people is similar to the annoying people who overcompensate with monster vehicles. New Tiktokers will do anything to get popular, including using fake badges on lower-spec cars to seem cool.
The people who know what the performance badge means will know it's not real, and those who don't know what it means won't care. Then these content creators will make a follow-up video dissing any honest car guy commenting with genuine thoughts about the content.
1 Car Guys Hating Other Car Guys
Just because you can afford a superior build compared to others doesn't make you invincible. In any car meet, you'll meet people saying you do not deserve a certain car, and they think it's above your league just because they want to hate on something.
People will give reasons why you shouldn't deserve a certain car that they would die to own. Maybe #RespectAllBuilds is lame because some builds are absolute ricers and a travesty, but most builders put time, thought, work, and dedication into their cars and don't deserve the hate.