Motoring Article 1

Chav or Show Car?

Flashing neon’s, ironing board spoilers, go faster stripes and generally looking like a Halfords sale Christmas tree gone wrong! This article is dedicated to enlighten and educate you on a true “Modifier”.

Your ‘typical’ just turned seventeen and passed their test ‘boy racers’ are normally the ones that give us a bad name, from pushing our insurance through the roof to getting us to move on from local meets.

I guess it’s the feeling of pride and sense of achievement to say, “I can pull up my handbrake and do a quarter of a doughnut” or “push my pedals to find which one is my rev limiter.” That’s what ruins it for us and winds up the cop shop for them to normally make an appearance in 20 minutes, and it seems that there are more cops at meets than necessary rather than being out enforcing the law to ‘proper’ criminals.

But above and beyond the first timers,

“Is it a spaceship?”

“Is it a shopping trolley?”

“No!”

And after thousands spent on it, it’s a modified car! Full Gucci interiors, TV screens and even live gold fish tanks in cars, I feel that modification and personally customising your car is a form of expressive art through automobiles. With straight through exhaust, flip glitter paint jobs, Lambo or suicide doors, chrome spinners or bouncing hydro’s, the list is endless on what you can modify on your car.

But it’s not just a prize winning money pit, there is one other side to spending all this cash and that’s showing it all OFF. Cruising to the most famous strip South End sea front draws in the hundreds of car enthusiasts on a typical Saturday night. Car clubs, socializing with your friends, swapping chit-chat,

“What’s new?”

“What’s in?”

And who’s done what to their project – THIS is what we thrive on.

The only downer in this hobby is waiting for it to see daylight, to emerge out of the body shop, and when it does the excitement and crazed happiness that you feel is akin to holding a first born. These are the types of satisfaction used to describe your pride and joy rolling out knowing, “I transformed that.”
And this is the mark of a true modifier.



Danielle J. Christie