Alright, the title may be a bit overdramatic and I perhaps may be giving far too much attention to a movie franchise that’s harmless at best. Still, it certainly has made things very unpleasant to some people.
Really, it isn’t that I hate modified cars, for the most part I don’t care about modified cars. After all, if someone purchases a car shouldn’t he or she be able to do whatever they please with it? If that includes a faux carbon fiber hood and a spoiler that’s as big as it is useless, good for them. Make sure that the spoiler at least is tall enough not to break the back window when you open the trunk. Particularly heinous modified cars can even be a source of amusement; like the time I saw a fart can equipped Honda Civic with a broken automatic wrestling to climb a hill at 15MPH while the poor torque converter tried all the gears in a cacophony of noise and failure. But one can lament the fact that these modifications are usually not reversible and even if they are it is usually is not financially viable to do so. All of those good cars that fell victims to careless tuning and even more careless driving.
The movies themselves were…average. The first one stars the late Paul Walker as L.A.P.D officer Brian O’Conner as he goes deep undercover to investigate a series of highway heists. Along the way he encounters the seedy underground of illegal street racing and makes an unlikely acquaintance of Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), the leader of the gang doing the heists. The plot is actually rather straightforward as far as plots come. The Second movie, 2 Fast 2 Furious (Oh dear, they actually named it that) Decided it was to be less Bad Boys and more Miami Vice. It follows O’Conner after being kicked out of the LAPD and being chased by both them and the FBI. He decides to settle in Miami and make a living street racing until he gets caught and offered a deal. If he can help bring down notorious Drug Lord Carter Verone (Cole Hauser) he will get a squeaky clean criminal record.
I must’ve watched the first two movies at least a dozen times over the years, the parents absolutely loved them and found them funny. I can see why, from the silly car jargon that doesn’t make any sense (Granny shiftin’ not double clutchin’ like you should.) To the Miami police officers hacking into the cars using a grappling hook on steroids. Not to mention that if I were to take them at face value I’d have to conclude that the average tuner car comes standard with a 27 speed manual transmission. You get the sense that the people involved are not taking it particularly seriously. At least in the Latin American dub, the original English dub may perhaps add an additional slab of drama and I’ve never seen them subtitled. They must have a sort of charm too, since they have spawned a movie franchise that continues to this day and doesn’t seem to show signs of stopping seven movies later (An eighth movie is reportedly in the works).
The problems for me started not long after people around me started watching the movies. All of a sudden my friends stopped drooling over Ferraris and Porsches and filling their imagination with neon-clad Civics and Integras. Buying them, driving them, tuning them, pushing a little button on the steering wheel that would take them to warp factor five. My favorite video game franchise at the time, Need for Speed, went from racing exotics near active volcanoes to racing a ricer Sentra against other ricer Sentras in a drab gray city. Really there wasn’t anything automotive around me that wasn’t touched in some way by this new fad and to this day I don’t know exactly why it became so popular.
Was it the fact that they were much lower hanging fruit than the normal sports cars? The exponentially increased probability of owning one? I mean, my friends at school had never seen a Porsche 911 or a BMW M5 but we only need to stick our heads out of the window and watch the black Mitsubishi Eclipse that our Physics teacher drove. Suddenly you could own a car that was even better than the ones that showed up in the movies and you wouldn’t have to win the lottery to have the privilege. Even after the laws of supply and demand started to take the prices to ever more absurd heights (’87 CRX, no rust, $12,000 fixed)
Maybe it was the fact that you could personalize them. After all, isn’t one of our pursuits to be individuals? The aftermarket was ready and willing to take on the increased demand to be different, with an ever growing number of taillights, body kits, stick-on trim pieces and badging. Really you were only limited by the size of your wallet and how much you cared about your neighbors staring in disapproval. And if you really wanted to be original you could try and do it yourself with some fiberglass although that had an increased chance of failure.
Some kits ended up better than others is all I am trying to say.
Whatever the reason, the market for cars to be tuned exploded, prices of EG6 hatchback Civics, Mitsubishi Eclipses, Acura Integras, Toyota Supras and Celicas. Basically anything that could be even remotely sporty, was just hitting the bottom of the depreciation curve and could be snagged for cheap was bought and beaten within an inch of its life. A shame really since most of them were actually genuinely good cars. It also meant that you were…say…a 16 year old looking for wheels in the middle of this insanity the venn diagram between the cars you could afford and wanted and the ones that were available stock and within reach was pretty much two separate circles. I should know. On the other hand I should be thankful since we ended with something sensible, very likable and just quirky enough to pique my interest.
What if you wanted a tuned one? Well you didn’t did you? The same reasoning behind buying a car in the dullest shade of silver to not hurt resale value was held true here. Also, it increases the chance that the previous owner was a bit reckless with it. A specific example, I was driving my not-tercel the other day (The story of which would probably need a two-part COAL) and behind me there was a lowered Civic (Because it usually is) with requisite Japanese beginner driver sticker on the windshield and crappy HID conversion whose driver simply couldn’t fathom why I would drive the speed limit in a school zone. So desperate he was to get past me that he cut in the wrong lane and proceeded to leave me in a cloud of white smoke and fart can noise. A couple hundred metres later he realized there were speed bumps in the area. He slams on the brakes, drives at half-a-mile an hour over them then peels away leaving an admittedly impressive set of black lines behind. When I found him a couple of blocks away checking if he had scraped his bumper? perhaps less impressive.
Nowadays the import tuner scene has cooled down to a white dwarf car culture, that is, it still exists but it’s populated by less members that are nonetheless completely devoted to it. Donks, Stanced cars and the murdered out look have taken its place in annoying enthusiasts. As far as the movies are concerned after the second one neither me nor my family watched any of the sequels, we figured there was no way to top a Chevrolet Camaro crashing into a yacht carrying Eva Mendes wielding a double-barreled shotgun. Except perhaps committing high treason by putting an RB26 Nissan engine in a Mustang. But that seems highly unlikely.
As a 17 year old, I will confirm; these movies do blow, and age like a digital camera.
I don’t mind modified cars if it’s in good taste or that the mods are as functional as they are aesthetic. Unfortunately, I’ve seen modified cars that have no functional purpose, nor are they aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. The Cadillac limousine would’ve looked fine with just mag wheels and generally stock. But whoever modded this car made it look just tacky.
Perhaps the exception to the rule is the Volkswagen Jetta in the picture. I’m not a fan of the rear wing, but the rest of the car looks awesome!
Agreed. That Jetta actually LOOKS like a real race car to a certain extent, as opposed to looking like a poorly drawn cartoon car.
Funnily enough that Jetta was in the movie, and Frankie Muniz of “Malcom in the middle” fame bought it and has it to this day.
It was interesting to see that that particular Jetta had the infamous Two-Point Slow engine and an automatic transmission. Didn’t know that Frankie Muniz actually bought it!
That Jetta looks like the 90’s cheesy tunerZ ride it is.
The 2.Slow only added insult to injury.
I have to disagree on that jetta. To my eye, 4 door sedans look absolutely awful when being passed off as any kind of race car. If that’s what you have, and you have the itch to mod it then I would say aim for the look of a high end euro sedan. Keep it tasteful and classy. A GTI can get away with looking like a wannabe rally car, but this….YUCK.
+1 especially when said sedan is a Jetta. I mean come on, that has to be the least sporty looking body ever made, it looks like a chick car even with all the wings and anime graphics. I just remember the movie car had gigantic wheels and tiny stock brakes and a roll bar that’s both too far back to protect the driver in a rollover and render the rear seat useless.
I imagine fans of the Australian Falcon GT would probably take issue…
Oh yes, yes we would… *loads shotgun* 😉
4-door sports cars are very popular here – they have space and the ability to get into said space with a set of rear doors. Ford Aussie reckons the Mustang will be an easy sell when it replaces the Falcon next year, but if they understood the downunder market (or read their own FaceBook page), they’d know that down we prefer our sports cars to have 4 doors. Means we can take our mates with us!
That is the way I figure it, its their property. However, on the level of class and taste, some of the things people do with their property are the automotive equivalent of wearing a brown belt with black shoes (or worse). Case in point with that Caddy limo on clown shoes or that VW made to look like some kind of “race car”. Ugh, the humanity…
All I remember about the first one is that the hijackers were stealing a truckload of contraband VCRs. Even 15 years ago, that would have been worth about as much as a load of paper clips.
I only watched the first F&F movie because it was broadcast on TV, therefore free. All I remember about it is that a street drag race on a road with a train track at the end is a really stupid idea.
> All I remember about the first one is that the hijackers were stealing a truckload of contraband VCRs.
Leave the VCRs, hock the truck. 🙂
Having done all sorts of shenanigans with vehicles over the years, from chopping the roof off my gf’s ( now wife, go figure!) Hornet to actually owning, and restoring a Renault 5 (loved the full sunroof), and slamming my datsun 510 (it was cool, it was 1981!) and lots in between, I struggle with this. By this, I mean the whole subculture pictured here, from donks to Furies. I should be open minded. I should breezily accept the “art and culture”. But I just can’t. Ok, I almost could, until I saw the fine craftsmanship on the Jag, or what was a Jag. Sweet Mother Mary and her little brown donkey….
maybe I could get some “how to” advice on hanging a Folgers fartcan my Cube, should be good fun!
I can totally understand how the scene blew up as a result of fashionable rides suddenly being (relatively) affordable. Taste, tact and class, however, operate independently of wealth and are rarer than all the Italian exotics.
I passed a stock Camry on the highway the other day that had “Camry” written on the side in the biggest, boldest script letters that could fit within its average-sedan wheelbase. I understand the desire to differentiate yourself and/or rise above your station in this hobby, but to avoid ridicule from everyone you have to be more observant…
http://www.Ricecop.com was my first automotive love on the Internet, and some of the discussions there were the best I had prior to finding sites like this one. I have been fortunate not to see obscenities like that site’s worst features in at least 5 years.
I wonder if we bitched about the hot rods in the 50’s and 60’s like this? All my exposure to them back then was the custom car magazines of the day, which meant that if it appeared in the magazine it had to be cool. No local hot rod group (I don’t even think Johnstown had such a thing) would have allowed a 12-14 year old anywhere near them, so I wasn’t privy to the conversations.
Of course, we didn’t have an Internet back then to allow a few voices such volume and breadth.
I do remember a somewhat sneering rule of thumb that, “Hot rod a car, and all its value is limited to the worth of the motor.”
But this piece isn’t simply a rant against tuner cars themselves. It’s a rant against how tuner cars influenced automotive popular culture, and also inflated the prices of used econoboxes that would’ve otherwise made good first cars for cash-strapped young people.
Go look at some of the movie posters from that era (pre 1960, generally) and I think you may come to the conclusion that Syke is right. Not much difference. I suspect each generation has something like this. For my son I think it might have been skaters and bikes.
I expect the price for “little duece coupes” skyrocketed after the song. They were practically giving them away during my parents time.
Syke is right about what? I didn’t argue against his point, which is that older folks have always looked down on kids hot rodding their cars, personalizing a vehicle ultimately reduces its value, and the tuner scene is just today’s version of that.
What I’m trying to say is that this article isn’t a rant against tuner cars specifically, so his comment isn’t any kind of rebuttal against it. This article has an interesting point (IMO), so if the comments amount to simply slagging/defending tuners or dismissing it as “same old, same old”, I think it’s a missed opportunity for a deeper discussion.
I would also be interested to know (facts, not conjecture) whether the hot rod scene “back in the day” was actually large enough to affect used car prices or availability. (I’m not trying to be snarky, I am genuinely interested in this.) I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that wrecked cars with OHV V8’s didn’t keep their engines long when they went to the wreckers in the 50’s.
Actually, I wasn’t really rebutting anything, I was just wondering what the level and specifics was against modified cars when I was a kid. Of course, my father’s generation would have thought that a deuce coupe was pathetic – I’m just wondering what the reasoning was.
At that time, I thought that custom cars were so neat, I wouldn’t have noticed the specifics of the inevitable nay-sayers.
It’s like almost anything else having to do with youth culture. There were the finger-wagging folks, who looked down on the hot rod scene as a sign of depravity, and there were those that embraced it, alongside their kids. Or just put up with it, like most parents always do.
Don’t forget, the hot rod/custom/tuner culture wasn’t really new; it had roots going back to the 1920s. It was always there; it just expanded strongly in the 50s due to demographics, disposable income, and a greater oneness to personal expression.
There were plenty of dads hot rodding right along with their kids in the 50s and 60s. Or better put: the kids learned it from their dads.
As to vehicle values back then: there was still an essentially unlimited availability of old Fords back then, so prices were cheap. And plenty to go around for both the rodders and the restorers. I don’t think anybody back then was bitching about the kids snatching up all the old Fords. They were going begging.
Let’s face it; all those millions of old Fords would never have been all restored. Better they ended up as rods then as river bank stabilization.
Yes, ohv V8s did get snatched up quickly, so that would have affected their junk yard prices.
meh, I don’t see it. That craze raised the price of certain makes and models like 200SX, certain civics, etc but there were and are still many cheap, import cars that have no value for the FaF crowd and whos value was not impacted.
This isn’t the first time I heard this argument about car prices. Can’t say that I have any first-hand experience, since I’ve never gone shopping for a used (whatever vehicles tuners like).
What piqued my interest most in the article was the comments about video games, etc. ie: automotive popular culture. I’m a bit older and got away from playing car racing games before this transition, but that change was obvious once pointed out. I can think of other examples of changing car culture influenced by tuners as well.
Any of the particularly desirable tuner platforms have gotten pretty thin on the ground. The cooking versions’ numbers are further thinned by the usual ordinary-car problem: being beaten to death doing family car duty for buyers who aren’t thinking about preservation beyond trying to get the car to last until they can afford a replacement.
Not to mention the insurance rates. The premiums on a base model non-turbo Impreza are considerably higher than a comparable Civic or Corolla simply because the WRX/STi is on the same platform. In many places a turbo Forester is actually cheaper to insure than a base Impreza.
totally agree. Since the first teenager pained the wooden wheels on his flivver a different shade than stock there have been cars modified with good/poor taste and good/poor quality craftsmanship. The ‘Ricer’ fad was preceded by lowered minitrucks which was preceded by lowered air cooled vw’s. In all of those cases there were a lot of 16 year-olds trying to emmulate what they saw in magazines with hand tools and torches with predictable results.
50s and 60s hot rods and customs are now seen as having relatively uniform style and quality, but the reality was that there were many hacked cars that never made it to print and pissed off the neighbors just like these civics with 5″ exhaust tips make us wince.
My first car was a ’63 Valiant 100 with a wheezy 170 ci slant six—that I promptly put 245-60-14 tires on the back of. The only way that car could turn a wheel in anger was if you turned the wheels all the way to full lock and popped the clutch. I am quite sure that the neightbors did not appreciate that car darkening our driveway, but I thought it was so cool….
“50s and 60s hot rods and customs are now seen as having relatively uniform style and quality, but the reality was that there were many hacked cars that never made it to print and pissed off the neighbors just like these civics with 5″ exhaust tips make us wince.”
EXACTLY.
I agree with Gerardo’s reason of how this “fad” caught on. Suddenly, stuff that was cool in the movies happened to be affordable import cars. And like anything else, some are done “right” and some are done “wrong”. But even “wrong” is a matter of opinion. Although “wrong” usually looks pretty ridiculous sometimes!
People have been modifying cheap cars for ages. Think of the kids in the 40s and 50s turning old Model Ts and As into hot rods (or at least functional jalopies.) In the 60 and into the 70ss, all the cool kids were jacking up the rear of their cars to mimic stance of drag cars.
makes me laugh my ass off – ultra-modified ‘bedazzled’ cars, lowered to the point of ridiculousness. So glad I never suffered from ‘mine is better/bigger/faster than your’s’ mindset.
insecurity, inferiority and testosterone is a horrid mix! lol
You’re painting with a pretty wide brush. I suspect that insecurity, inferiority and testosterone are not what drives most people to modify their cars. Well, maybe testosterone.
Some people want to fit-in with their peers, but some want to express creativity or individualism. You have to be pretty secure with yourself to drive a car that some people are surely going to ridicule. Is this really any different?
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-follow-up-the-ugly-american-is-now-a-true-hipster/
I don’t like “tuner” cars at all, but I can still respect what they’re trying to accomplish.
“You’re painting with a pretty wide brush. I suspect that insecurity, inferiority and testosterone are not what drives most people to modify their cars. Well, maybe testosterone.”
Agree 100%. Insecurity and inferiority are more likely to manifest themselves in other ways. Rolling up your sleeves and tearing into your ride at least shows some form of effort, ownership and can-do attitude. How it turns out on the other hand, is a matter of skill and an eye for detail. Someone compensating for something is more likely to write a big check on whatever they think will impress someone and call it a day. That could be a big blingy SUV, an exotic (that they don’t know how to drive or maintain) or it COULD be to jump on the environmentalist bandwagon. In any case, people do things for different reasons but a poser of any kind will usually show their stripes pretty early on, as will a true enthusiast.
But there are a lot of these people who have absolutely no business messing with anything more than an air freshener in their car, regardless of how much effort and can-do attitude that it may show.
I bought a 1941 Chevrolet (well, my dad did) when I was in 7th grade. It sat on the side of our house for years until I had taken auto shop and auto body shop and had learned enough to know what I was doing before I started disassembling it for a mild street rod (which, due to college, and then life, never got finished).
I just shudder when I see some of these idiots on the road, as their wheel/tire/camber angle choices make their cars both unreliable and unsafe to be on the road. I actually got my ASE cert. in vehicle alignment while in high school (our auto shop had a $25K Hunter machine which was state-of-the-art at the time and I knew how to use it).
I understand where you are coming from and the worst part for me is when they get it wrong. Every time I see an A2 Jetta with round headlights I feel the urge to tell the owner they never came that way in Germany. Also it isn’t JDM if the steering wheel is on the Left ( although, now that I think of it do RHD countries have LHD mail trucks and street sweepers?)
I also get a big laugh out of the guys who try to emulate FWD drag racers by running alloy wheels on one axle for weight reduction and stock steelies with tall tires on the other end for a better launch. The problem is the rice boys put the steelies in the back.
The worst effect of this had to be the kid who desecrated an RX-7 Turbo by putting Acura badges on it.
Do not forget about the spoilers that have no other effect besides worsening fuel economy and perhaps a little bit of lift of the driven wheels.
Wrong, a spoiler can clean up the air flow in the boot area immensely. And also add downforce.
Said downforce comes with some drag which yes, reduces fuel economy.
“Every time I see an A2 Jetta with round headlights I feel the urge to tell the owner they never came that way in Germany.”
But is that the reason theyre doing that conversion? Personally I think round headlites look better on most any car, regardless of which domestic market it imitates. Nothing turns me off faster than oversize aerodynamic fully chromed headlights. Looks like a really surprised anime character or something. Blech! That was a source of frustration when I had my GT Cruiser…I hated the ‘Pikachu eyes’ from day one, but no one had anything close to what this Jetta has going on. I did find some that blacked out the reflectors a bit…huge improvement.
All these comments really drives home just how weird I was in my teen years. Although I had the early 60’s love of hot rods, buy the time I turned 16 (1966), I was thoroughly taken with antique cars. And my first car was a bone stock 1937 Buick Special, which I showed at the local AACA venues for the next ten years. And refused to modify it, despite the amazement of acquaintances who were convinced it would have made a real bitchin’ street rod.
I’m of the same sort of mindset. I’ve always been a purist through and through in all of my hobbies.
I collect millitary rifles and it has never ceased to torque me off seeing the results of someone’s ill advised garage gunsmithing adventure on some old warhorse. Some of them, like turn of the century Mausers and Mannlichers were damn near works of art, the workmanship and quality thereof can hardly be matched let alone exceeded by only the creme de la creme gunsmiths. Its painful to see them fall victim to the hacksaw and the belt sander and end up as poorly executed attempts to copy the Remington m700 or Winchester m70. Yuck. That, and as a collector’s hobby, its all in the details. They aren’t just “all the same” and when a non-collecter stumbles onto a rare firearm and then turns it into his bubba huntin’ gun he not only lost money but we lost one more of a very rare type that simply cannot be brought back.
Its different for cars, of course, but some of that same thought comes to me when I happen to see some rare or fascinating submodel of a car turned into someone’s rat rod or hot rod or whatever when there were strippers galore. 🙁
Awesome Syke. I have a ’38 Cadillac V16 that I restored a few years ago in my early 30’s. It seems the more into the hobby, the more you look for ways to be different. I used to not like ’65 Mustangs because it was like a generic classic car. A dozen people in my high school had them in the late ’90s. Now I like them more. But 30’s cars are art deco works of art and I love how they are completely different from post war cars.
Ahem….
More similar tuning jobs and modifications here:
http://www.autoblog.nl/archive/2010/03/20/lekker-fout-russiche-auto-modificaties
Ok, I said a bit further up the page that Kiwis and Aussies like our sports cars to be 4-door sedans. But that Samara really pushes the boundaries Johannes lol 😉
There are some right shockers on the site you linked to! Although I’d bet the blue Toyota Chaser (third photo down on the site) was done like that in Japan, as its ‘modifications’ are often found here on used imports.
Picture # 2 depicts the eight most genuinely unhappy-looking people ever.
BTW, only nominally on-topic, but the “first” F&F movie is older. Much older:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046969/
I actually have that older movie on DVD. I bought it a couple of years ago out of curiosity, knowing it wasn’t the Tuner version.
Not a bad car movie for it’s time.
These movies doesn’t even deserve to be called average, the first is a blatant shot by shot ripoff of Point Break and the rest are like disposable 1930s crime capers with worse acting and crappy overwrought effects. The first one with it’s ridiculous car facts was at least watchable since it was HILARIOUSLY dumb but the rest are just a bunch of drivel piled with soap opera reject actors, and of course The Rock(although wrestling is about as realistic as these turds so maybe it’s fitting). I’ve somehow managed to get dragged to the recent installments by a few friends(who are eroding that status!) who want to convince me “they’ve gotten a lot better”. Riiiight.
I was a teen pretty much through the first 4 installments of these movies and I got a lot of crap for my Muscle car bias I had/still have from people. I witnessed the shift in tastes in cars in a lot of friends as well and I very adamantly and successfully refused to acknowledge those movies, and the entire “tuner” scene’s credibility. It gets pretty grating when every other 17 year old thinks their Mom’s handmedown Civic is a 10 second car when they add subwoofers, a wing, a bodykit and a cold air intake(with the filter in the engine bay).
Hey, at least these can be enjoyed ironically. They don’t fall into the “so-bad-it’s-unwatchable” category, like The Star Wars Holiday Special.
You know “Nail Gun Massacre” ? Saw it on VHS years ago.
Quote: “….one of the so-bad-it’s-good champions”.
There is a term in the film world called “the willing suspension of disbelief”. That’s what I do when I watch these types of movies. He he he.
I did see a bit of the Star Wars Holiday Special on youtube a few years ago. It was the part where Bea Arthur sings to a motley crew of aliens that her bar is closing. If the rest of the movie is like that clip, it definitely falls into the “so-bad-it’s-good” category.
The Star Wars Holiday Special is so bad that even Star Wars geeks hate it.
Actually the only person who actually likes it is the father in the “Sally Forth” comic strip. And if you follow that comic, you know he’s beyond pathetic.
The animated segment (featuring the first on-screen appearance of Boba Fett) was actually pretty good. But the rest was garbage. I tried watching a bootleg several years ago and I couldn’t even get through ten minutes.
The first one is the best to be enjoyed ironically, you could tell the writers were trying desperately to come up with every car related and general driving term they could to make the movie play out like a documentary on underground car culture, sprinkled with a subplot of a cop and robber heist story, but every single word or phrase was comically wrong, misused, or just plain stupid. Even my not very car interested Mom was able make fun of that movie! So yes, that one is enjoyable. The second one and the other sequels to follow all seemed to refocus on making cool badass action movies (featuring cars), there’s both better movies of that ilk to watch and enjoy and better movies to enjoy making fun of. All the sequels really need a Rifftrax treatment to be enjoyable.
I remember seeing the Star Wars holiday Special when I was a kid, it actually makes the prequals look good!
“You blew the welds on your manifold!”
“I live my life a quarter mile at a time!”
God that’s a cheesy, bad, awesome movie. I saw the first one at a drive in theater with my wife (our first year of dating) in my Mustang. Your feelings mirror mine (and Gerardo’s). It’s just comically bad in so many ways that I almost like it. Right around the fourth movie, it’s like they started trying, and that’s when things got a little sad. We still watch them though, probably more for old times’ sake than anything. 🙂
Lets not forget how Dom’s dad was supposedly killed ‘coming out of the first turn in a pro-stock race’. That one still makes me laugh!
That said, the black Charger makes me feel all tingly inside….
,,,,until you see it pull the wheelie. The ‘F&F’ franchise did more to insult the intelligence of the true car guys for years to come. Plus-it added the most irritating, needle-skipping-across-the-record-sounding bastardization of calling nitrous oxide “Noss”. If I had a dollar for every kid in the early ‘Aughts’ who called in wanting a fart cannon and ‘Noss’ for mommy’s hand-me-down Accord, I could’ve retired long ago….
I remember the line about “Blowing the welds on your intake” and “Double Clutching” as if it was something racers do.
…And welds being rivets and intake being floorboard.
If only Brian had heeded the “DaNgEr tO mAnIfOlD!!!” warning on his laptop datalog!!!
Being an American car hot rodder and amateur drag racer (on a track, not the street), I just took all the Fast and Furious crap as a joke. I can honestly say I was never beat by a Japanese car at the track, but I did see a lot of them with blown engines, because the owner had put nitrous injection on a completely stock engine, then raced it.
However, as you said, things got worse. While I either ignored or laughed at the “tuner” crowd, those “donks”, like rap crap, bring about feelings of real hate. To me they are a symbol of ghetto culture and racial violence. I wish they would get outlawed. Remember the short lived era of cars with tiny little wheels that stuck about a foot out past the fenders? Those were also a symbol of gang affiliation. And they were made illegal for safety reasons. The same thing could be done with donks.
In a larger sense, I have never understood why much of mainstream America wants to copy gang culture. From clothes to cars and what is referred to as “music” The ‘big wheel” thing came straight from the ghetto, as did the tiny donut wheels that stuck way out, and even the original lowriders. Even such otherwise talented car customizers like Chip Foose ruins everything he builds with those huge ugly wheels.
As much as I hate those cars I won’t ever go so far to say they should be outlawed. I think affiliating cars to racial violence and gang affiliation is a stretch, many of the people I knew into those cars are white and for the most part it’s a fairly diverse group around here.
Gangster culture has always been embraced by mainstream America, just look back on any outlaw in the West, Bonnie and Clyde or Dillinger, the Mafia, ect. I think it’s human nature to want to break the chains of conformity. Mimicking the styles really isn’t anything new.
My main beef with the donk and lowrider crowd is that they go after the classy landyachts that I like. I think the original ethos is lost to the people who think they are somehow “improving” on them with candy paint and clown shoes.
But, “outlawing” is going a bit far. Start giving the government reason to outlaw certain cars for “commonsense” reasons and pretty soon they might see fit that we all be driving around in hybrid penalty boxes.
You are correct. My comment was a knee jerk reaction. But cars with 44″ wheels have that kind of effect on me. And the way others copy it, though usually to a lesser degree, also bothers me. I grew up with 15″ wheels being the largest car wheel made. I think these 20″ and 22″ wheels, which you see everywhere not only look goofy, but their origins come from ghetto culture, which to me is criminal culture. I grew up poor, on a farm, but never became a criminal. I also don’t the solid black wheels. They look like they are covered in brake dust and need to be cleaned. But as long as they are a reasonable size, they don’t bother me. I just see them as an expression of bad taste. IMO.
My 1993 S10 pickup is already an outlaw. I put a carbed 383 V8 in it, with a real dual exhaust and glasspacks. No computer, no emissions crap. It has 275/60R-15 tires on 8′ wheels in the back, and 185/70-14 tires on 6″ wheels in the front. It has a Hilborn scoop sticking up through the hood, because I did not have enough hood clearance. I will eventually replace that with a cowl hood, as it does look a bit hokey to me. I have to register it in the next county because my county has emissions testing. I don’t see it as being ghetto inspired, it looks like something you might see on any dragstrip anywhere in the country. Yet I have gotten a lot of negative comments from a lot of people online, because I chose to build something that was politically incorrect. Yet slammed, bagged trucks are considered just fine if they have all their emissions crap. Sorry for getting a bit off topic.
those “donks”, like rap crap, bring about feelings of real hate. To me they are a symbol of ghetto culture and racial violence
This isn’t even on topic with the article in question, and has no business within the context of this website. Gross.
Seconded.
The first movie was good, cheesy fun. I saw it in the theater during the summer of 2001, and enjoyed it for what it was. The second one was just plain silly.
Whether the franchise will be able to continue without Paul Walker is a big question. His younger brother filled in for a few scenes at the end of the movie (the shots were he is with Jordana Brewster and their child). It’s my understanding, however, that Walker’s character will not die in the movie…he will just be written out of the series.
As others have noted, young people have been snapping up cheap used cars and modifying them for years. When I was teenager, plenty of old muscle and pony cars were bought, treated to a set of mag wheels and rear air shocks (for the raked look) and then driven into the ground or wrapped around telephone poles. Now those cars are worth a fortune at Barrett-Jackson.
The third movie, Tokyo Drift, didn’t have Paul Walker, so it wouldn’t be unprecedented. And let’s face it, while it’s sad he died young(in a half million dollar sports car), casting could have pretty much picked anyone to play the Brian O ‘Connor role for the first one, and the followups in the series would pretty much be no different.
Well, to be fair, FF movies just brought the ‘Compact Tuner’ image/look to the masses. Sport Compact Car magazine pre-dates the movie series by nearly a decade.
Now, sometime I’ll see a beat up ’98 Civic LX 4 door with a huge spoiler, but the over the top custom looks are out of style.
I was dead against Japanese cars until I moved to Adelaide. I became friends with a guy who loved his grey import turbos and got religion. We saw the first movie, but for both of us it marked an end to these sort of cars rather than a beginning.
I’m seeing more of these customs when I do my research…
I was mildly disappointed that I saw neither these nor dekotora when I visited Japan.
Saw an Accord shitbox yesterday with a hirise exhaust the police-man was writing him a love letter and pointing at the tail pipes LOL. Twin stacks look cool on a Kenworth or Freightliner, but on a Jappa not so much
Oh….
In Royal Oak, Mi I was in a a street racing in my stock Lincoln Mark VIII, I figured maybe my car is too old to race against anything ( especially considering the vulnerable transmission ) so I did few burn outs. OH! An Accord with many aftermarket rims and spoilers and lights obviously wanted to do exactly the same and his multiply attempts eventually stopped when an Explorer showed up and wrote him a ticket. It’s an Accord afterall.
We’ve had a few – very few – of whatever those customs are called turn up here Don. They need special certification to be road legal, and usually have to lose the extended spoilers and weird exhausts, but the body mods can often be certified.
Ignorant skill overall, coupled with the humble roots of these cars ( It’s okay to get a fast granny 3.8 Buick V6 and acceptably reliable by buying a Park Avenue Ultra, but it’s not okay to start with a Mitsubishi Mirage with 1.6 L4 and drive it under 13s, even though they do look very similar to an Evo VI. ) and coupled with the horrible fit-and-finish and lack of proper maintenance ( usually the case for the people drive certain cars. ) it cant look worse and it cant be worse.
And, above all, it’s a movie. Same story with Initial D, and it’s merely an entertainment, if it’s something above average.
The achievement of culturally sanctioned “good taste” is really not the object of most youth culture trends, nor is the approval of older people required or even desirable. Annoying and bothering older people is at least half the point; it’s about winning approval from your peers by distancing yourself from the tastes of your parents.
At any given point, there’s always the divide between people who are genuinely interested in going faster and those who just want to look cool. The former group inevitably subdivides into those who have the skill and/or determination to follow through and those whose ideas are bigger than their ability — that holds true no matter what auto enthusiast realm you’re looking at.
I do agree that when certain things become trendy for whatever reason, it does have a frustrating effect on the cars in question: The desirable and/or cheap/solid iterations get snapped up to be turned into god knows what, leaving the few unmolested examples either very rare and/or very expensive. That even became the case with things like the Henry J or the old Willys Americar; they were super-cheap, light, and could be built up into a reasonably sturdy street rod, so most that survive are painted purple and green with flames.
Its precisely why youth is wasted on the young. I’m not even that old (31) but when I look back 10 or 15 years ago, I think of how stupid that attitude was.
It’s a rite of passage. All cultures have their rituals; since our culture is consumerism uber alles, ours come down to “buying things your parents wouldn’t like.”
Oh, I know it is that way and probably always will be, thus the saying. Youth is wasted on the young. Just because things happen one way doesn’t mean they are any less stupid.
Although I am admittedly a fan of the first movie, it didn’t do any favors for the preservation of any 90’s to early 2000’s Japanese cars with any sort of sporting intentions. It is almost impossible to find a Civic Si, CRX, Supra, 180SX, 240SX, etc. in decent shape that hasn’t be thrashed or modified. As someone who is in their early twenties and is starting to have the money to buy these cars, it is very difficult to find one that is stock or well cared for.
This started a whole import vs domestic feud. Everyone with a Civic all of a sudden thought they had a race car. We used to have a drag strip that would let you run your car. They divided us up into import and domestic because I guess they were having fights or something. My domestic was too slow to compete with the Camaros and Chevelles so I took my 86′ Volvo 740 turbo and raced in the import section. I was blowing away ricers in their modded civics left and right. It was a blast!
Well, Paul was a driving a red 150 Lightning in the first film. So there was an American muscle presence. Albeit, a minuscule one.
Dominic Toretto also has a second-gen (’69?) Dodge Charger, as I recall, which is featured toward the end of the first film and in his cameo at the end of the third. The third film’s climactic race involves a Mustang (a GT-350, if I’m remembering) with a transplanted Nissan RB26DETT engine. If you consider the series as a whole, there’s a broader mixture.
And they’re ALWAYS the ones that get trashed.
First one the Charger gets hurled into a massive flip from hitting a semi truck(somehow).
Second one the Challenger T-bones a SUV and the 69 Camaro is hurled onto a yacht.
The third with the RB26DETT(ahh acronym hell!!!) Mustang, which was just a regular 68 with Shelby style stripes and side scoops, was beaten to hell during the climatic drift race. Oh and there’s a 70-72 Monte Carlo that gets trashed at the beginning.
And the fourth to the current installments have been wrecking more 68-70 Chargers than the Dukes of Hazzard. Plus many others like the 72 Sportsroof Torino, 69 Sportsroof Mustang, a 70 RoadRunner ect. have all met fiery ends on screen(not to mention off).
Oh I dunno, RB26DETT’s better than having to type out RB-series straight-6, 2.6 litre, double-overhead-cam, electronic-fuel-injected twin-turbo all the time 😉
I always blamed the ’90s craze for body-on-frame SUVs among their parents’ generation for kids thinking a Honda Civic is a sports car. Compared to the firstgen Explorer running pre-Firestone recall tire pressures they learned to drive on, it is.
Ok, late to the party, and I’ll be a dissenter too: I love all the F&F movies and own all on DVD. I don’t get the dislike for them or the cars. But then I’m older, I never took them that seriously. Why do I love ’em? Because they feature cars so heavily, and there aren’t many other recent movie series that can say that. Personally, I do prefer unmodified cars, but most of the ones in the movies were very well done, and I’d happily drive home in most of them.
I admire anyone with the guts to step outside the ‘norm’. Putting a GTR engine in a Mustang? Awesome, I love that! I get that most folks will think it a travesty, it was such a unique and well-executed modification it wins me over every time – and the RB engine note is divine, easily my favourite in the world. A 4-door Jetta instead of a GTi? Again, outside the norm, I like it.
Caveat: if you’re going to modify a car, make sure you choose a worthwhile base and make sure it’s done properly. A 1500cc Civic auto wouldn’t really be a worthwhile base, no matter how well it was done. A V-Tec manual though…
Caveat 2: I previously owned an R33 Skyline sedan that was lightly modified. It was a worthwhile car to modify as it was factory manual and had the factory bodykit. It came with a tiny Momo steering wheel, K&N filter and lightweight 17×9 deep-dish (4″ chrome lip) carbon-look wheels. I had it bare metal resprayed in factory grey with a red pearl, and added a big-bore exhaust and a big stereo with DSP system and big speakers. I adored that car! Of course it was the non-turbo RB20 engine, so it was a poser, but when it looked and sounded that good, and went that well with the manual too, who cares? (Not me!)
I concur, the Mustang with that Nissan engine was awesome. Done by an OEM before (sort of): VL Commodore. Although that Mustang should have used a Barra Turbo.
I’d love to swap a Coyote V8 in a C3 Corvette. Or the Terri diesel V6 into a VT-VZ.
In the US I know LSX engines get swapped into SN95 or Fox Mustangs. FTMFW!!1!!!
I’ve watched most of them. I think the 3rd was the only I went to the cinema to watch.
And from my latest experience I can say… it is good to chose a good car base to modify. Some versions have truly upgraded parts that are not fitted to poverty spec cars.
Saw most of them at the theatre, including #1 (with my Church pastor lol!).
Re the Barra Turbo, if I was rebuilding a 1930s car, that’s what I’d use. Everyone else does V8s, but most of the ’30s cars here were straight-6, so so go to a Barra would work great!
It is indeed important to choose the right base car – hence why I bothered modifying my Skyline. It was the poverty spec, but whoever bought it new in Japan ticked all the up-spec option boxes – as well as being manual with the bodykit, it also had a factory set of lovely Bilstein shocks. The ride/handling were sublime.
I personally hate tuner/ricerized cars. A guy at my high school has completly ruined his e30 bmw and it pains me to look at the black spray paint that was hastily applied to the hood to mimic carbon fibre.
Ohh the overspray…