[Closed] Stupid car modifications?

There’s a young scrote that drives past my place regularly with what appears to the the rear spoiler off an F1 car bolted to the roof of his 1.2 Ford Fiesta.

Haha! Nice, wonder if he’s managed to get the DRS system working for releasing the potential of that 1.2 on the straights

There is a ****! Three doors from here who has fitted a “sports exhaust” to his Merc. It sounds ridiculous, wakes up half the road every morning at about 5 am. Offers no performance advantage and generally makes him quite unpopular. It probably also gives him a migraine on anything other thsn a short drive to the shops.

Saw a car in a french service station, it had been re trimmed with white leather and fake diamonds, sculls and crosses. Sort of a white death rock / Liberace look.

Aye, 5am starts with a loud POS aftermarket exhaust is not going to win you any popularity contests with your neighbours!

Presumably the smoked lights gets you an MOT fail so you need 2 sets to swap before/after?

Edit - and lowered suspension to the point of scraping over speedbumps and gradient changes.

Lowered suspension is pretty stupid too tbh, presumably to make a car handle better at speed.
However, most towns nowadays are festooned with speed bumps, so it actually makes a car much slower as they have to go right down to 1st gear to negotiate them.
Loud exhausts, might make 0.00001bhp more at 6900rpm, but will almost certainly have less power everywhere else in the rev range, so totally pointless from a performance standpoint.
The only thing I would ever do to a car nowadays is upgrade the entertainment system, and I’d only bother with that if the original was obviously lacking tbh.

Middle aged stw at its finest 😉

Lol, yeah I’m 50 eh 😂😂😂

There was a whole website dedicated to this sort of money wastage; www.barryboys.co.uk

I've never had the money to modify any car I've owned to any great extent. As a youngster though I did buy some crap to stick ON my car to make it cooler 🙂

Little "wingy" things on the windscreen wipers to push them down against the glass. (They were already pushing against the glass - that's how they're made ffs)

"Cool" mats in the front wells for me to put my dirty shoes on.

The list of silly stuff goes on, but nothing like my mate who had an air scoop bolted to his bonnet (but no hole in the actual bonnet), had a 10ft long whippy aerial coming off the rear wing, had a rear spoiler bolted to his boot for "safety reason" etc.

Stance, handles like crap & wears your tyres in no time.
Wings
Massive brand/model stickers down the side ( transporter owners i’m Looking at you 😉 )

5am starts with a loud POS aftermarket exhaust is not going to win you any popularity contests with your neighbours!

Middle aged stw at its finest 😉

Go on Wiggles, show us yer phat ride 🙂

I'm on a FB group for owners of my car, it's split 50:50 original to stupidly modded.

Some of the shit they stick on...fake brake air intakes, spoilers (it's got 82bhp) are just embarrassing to me.

You do realise everyone is saying the same about people in their ridiculous cycling outfits pedalling around on bikes with lots of pointless expensive bits

They're not quite as intrusive on other folks though I guess

What is it Al?
Somr true horrors on the fb transporter sites, seems like a compulsion to keep putting stuff on till bits start falling off

Edit ( know full well I look ridiculous in most my cycle gear, & am sure some people will hate my van too 😉 ) it is kind of poo brown though

Narrow tyres stretched onto wide rims.

OTT bling:

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A couple of my high-school mates had an old Toyota beater and decided to convert it into a convertible by cutting off the roof with a hacksaw. This resulted in the doors not opening, which they didn't see as a problem so they took it cruising through town in the middle of the afternoon leading to a chat from the constabulary who were nice enough to not write up a ticket if they took it to a scrap yard and left it there.

Offers no performance advantage and generally makes him quite unpopular.

Even less of a performance advantage following a quick squirt of expanding foam in the dead of night, I should think...

Am I a terrible person for quite liking that Iveco? Anti-stealth camper.

Down the road is a lovely BMW 635 CSi with an idiotic aftermarket bean can exhaust fitted. What is more pathetic than the exhaust is the way he drives apologetically down the road trying not to make too much noise whilst on the estate.

I fitted an K+N air filter to my Mk2 16V Golf GTI. Made zero difference but I got some stickers that made it look cooler.

I bought a Toyota Starlet GT that had a spark plug drilled into the exhaust (otherwise known as a flamer unit!) I also found a concealed knife in the boot and the remains of some green in the ash tray.

When I was 17, my mini had a cherry bomb exhaust which set off car alarms as I drive past.

The bonnet bra. Especially on a Transporter, double points if accompanied by plastic flowers hung off the rear view mirror.

Complete the look with stick family sticker on the back

You forgot the ‘surfbrand’ stickers & skimboard table ( which is shite as a table shape wise) 😉
Edit: errr I did have a bra on the van before it was sprayed 🙁

Smart roadster Simon.

It's not the tin can exhaust types tho, most mods are in the style of the car, and there's a lot of tuning etc

The ones with the wheels at an angle so they look like they need the toilet do my head in. I really cannot see the point. 🙄

998cc (proper) Mini fitted with a Malpassi Filter King fuel pressure regulator and a K&N air filter.
Look, when you're 19 and you've only got 39PS you'll clutch any straw 🙂

I love the small VW thing of having a car that generally looks like crap- rusty arches, clapped out interior, and at least one panel in primer - but has the perfect wheels.

Stretched tyres are the worst. Especially if they've fitted wider wheels or even dafter banded them. It looks ridiculous, it can be dangerous, what's it all about?

While I was typing this a scooter went up the road making the exact same engine noise as my power washer.

captain_bastard

Subscriber

The bonnet bra. Especially on a Transporter, double points if accompanied by plastic flowers hung off the rear view mirror.

It's the weirdest idea... "paint protection" that makes your car look like shit now, so that when you sell it it looks good for the next owner.

There’s a brand new blinged-out Range Rover near us with a ridiculous body kit on it and lowered suspension, so the bottom of the skirts are about half an inch off the floor. It looks absolutely ludicrous and it probably cost the same as our house

can motorbikes be involved too? if so, the clowns who run tiny script font rear plates, why bother? Have you got too much money so you want to spend it on fines? It looks crap. Stop it!

Low profile tyres.

Removing the rear wiper.

Anything in primer.

Ruining perfectly engineered Japanese cars, especially Preludes.

Brown paint.

I see this Range Rover rolling round my manor.

The car is grey, but every little bit possible that you could take off and get chromed, such as door handles, vent covers, boot trims etc, has been taken off and chromed.

Takes all sorts.

A harley with open pipes just rode past sounding like the world's worst case of explosive diarrhea

Blazin-saddles

Member

can motorbikes be involved too? if so, the clowns who run tiny script font rear plates, why bother? Have you got too much money so you want to spend it on fines? It looks crap. Stop it!

I spent ages on mine working with the genuine font but cutting down size and margins and sizing down the flags and then putting everything back into the right proportions til eventually I had the most legit-looking illegal plate imaginable. It was only something like 6x4 but it just didn't attract any attention, and looked right on the bike too, win! Twice I had the police checking the bike for defects but just let the plate pass. (I think maybe if they'd found any other faults they'd have added it on though)

I think I'm allowed to put smaller plates on the car as it's an import- my inner chav is dying to get on that but I think maybe I should get the gearbox fitted first.

The bloke who bought my old Ibiza modded it with a re-map about a week after getting it, which I thought was pretty stupid.

I thought that was pretty brave considering it was on 275k miles with original clutch, turbo and injectors.
Apparently the clutch started slipping almost immediately in 6th and then in 4th and 5th within a few weeks.

He worked at a clutch/tyre centre so I suppose could sort it relatively cheaply.

Truckers are quite keen on a bit of cosmetic modding. Girlfriends, wives, children and prostitute names seem to be a favourite. Was asked to do a full rear bulkhead wrap of a Volvo FH with Keith Moon. Never got round to that one as we couldn’t find an image we could use. It would have cost the driver about £2k on his employers truck!

A mate spent a ridiculous amount of money getting a "pops and whistles" remap done on his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo-something.

God knows it sounded bad enough beforehand!

He also spent thousands on every conceivable bit of bling to make it even uglier and more uncomfortable than even Mitsubishi managed...

Bucket seats, in my 1979 Capri, from which I’d already removed the rear seats in readiness for my attempt at a roll cage from some scaffolding.

Needed to pop to Motormania so just loosely bolted the aforementioned bucket seats in. Big mistake, the impact of which became apparent when I tried to drag race from the lights. Front bolts predictably came loose & the seats tipped back. Car lurched forwards & stalled, in the middle of the lights. I was now trapped, clutching in vain at the hand grips & steering wheel. Luckily someone spotted my predicament & opened the door, allowing me to crawl out into the road. I was more peed at tearing my snow washed denims.

I love the Pauline Calf quote about Paul’s Capri

“**** me, Paul! It looks like you’ve covered it in super glue and ram-raided Halfords!”

😂

That Barry Boys site has some great examples

A lifted pick up around here. Outer diameter of the tyres has to be around 4'. Bank of LED lights at the front and rear. Snorkel. Winches. Hi-lift jack. God knows what the lift alone cost.

It's rear wheel drive and doesn't even have a locking diff 🙂

The ones with the wheels at an angle so they look like they need the toilet do my head in. I really cannot see the point.

Often with tyres that are really too narrow to fit, with very exposed outer rims. This seems to be a ‘thing’ on older MX5’s, for some reason. Great idea, take a car well known for its handling, then do a great job screwing it up, and making it really ugly at the same time.

I spent ages on mine working with the genuine font but cutting down size and margins and sizing down the flags and then putting everything back into the right proportions til eventually I had the most legit-looking illegal plate imaginable.

I'm fine with that, mine is a little smaller than legal, but still full sized letters. It's the tiny and script ones that bug me as they're probably riding like idiots and speeding, why give more ammo to the Police to pull you?

Well I don't mind a bit of stealthy modding, the problem is with modern cars they’re already pretty good so people just end up ruining them.

I had an old Porsche and did some mods to modernise it and lift the power and performance a bit and they were effective. I ‘upgraded’ the suspension too but that didn’t quite so successful. Great on track days but not so great for day to day driving.

My biggest pet hate are those eejits with cars that have automatic raising spoilers like TT’s and Audi A7’s, who mod them so they're up all the time. I struggle to think of many more things that are so sad and pathetic.

There’s an Astra online that’s been done out like Thunderbird 2.

How the hell do you link images in here these days?

https://images.app.goo.gl/qbR2bfjdQC8XW1gr9

I hate all bodywork mods but especially tacky stuck on stuff and tinted lights etc, I work in motorsport though so can appreciate proper engine, braking and suspension modifications providing it's a decent car to begin with.

Those stupid pops & bangs maps that people get done or come on some cars as standard are the most pointless though. I suppose they appeal to wannabe rally drivers that like to think they've got antilag.

Loud exhausts, might make 0.00001bhp more at 6900rpm, but will almost certainly have less power everywhere else in the rev range, so totally pointless from a performance standpoint.

On your average 1 litre engined boy racer car with a big bore I'd agree but on anything turbocharged with a restrictive standard exhaust it's an easy way to gain a load of power and spool the turbo quicker, easily 20bhp on some cars.

On the flip side my friend has just bought a Maserati quattro Porto and it sounds like a Corsa with a hole in the exhaust.

I was once followed, no, make that tailgated, through a 50mph limit on the M1 by a bunch of lads in a fully slammed and delt-with Corsa (20" wheels, "m3" mirrors, blue side lights, stick on bpnnet vents, and a "wish list" down the doors), that even at constant throttle could be heard droning away like a swarm of pubescent wasps, and as we got close to the end of the 50mph bit, he moved out and pulled level with me, ready to make a dash for it, for speed and for glory.

unfortunately, at the time, i was driving a Mclaren P1............

(frankly, he could have nailed the brake pedal rather than the accelerator for all the difference it made 😉 )

Chap at the top of my road is an early 60s Porsche man. Went past after he had reversed his new 991.2 GT3 off the drive and was picking up the remainder of his carbon fibre splitter...I suspect he went in head first the day before...

“wish list” down the doors)

Haha yeah this is one of my favourites. There's a dude near me with a standard rover of some sort. Looks like povo spec as well. It's completely covered in stickers for brembo, janspeed, pioneer, cosworth etc.
Plus a shitload of aftermarket chrome badges and trim pieces edging the windows etc.
Looks like the car a magpie would aspire to own.

spent ages on mine working with the genuine font but cutting down size and margins and sizing down the flags and then putting everything back into the right proportions til eventually I had the most legit-looking illegal plate imaginable.

Motorcycles are legally allowed to have smaller fonts and spacings than cars, so I picked up a random 6 digit private plate on ebay and hey presto small fully legal number plate 🙂 the replacement tuneable ecu, k&n and exhausts were well worth the money too 🙄

For what I said about stupid suspension earlier, I really think my van would benefit from improved damping and slightly softer/shorter springs as its lightly loaded 95% of the time.

But I reckon it's about £1k for the kit fitted, so not high up my priority list.

The T5 scene is riddled with chavsessories, such as:
Side rails (add weight, collect dirt which you then get on your shoes and trousers as you get in).
Aftermarket headlights that somehow are worse than the unforgivably bad oem units.
air bag suspension, for when you really have to rest its arse on the ground.
LED bulbs that riddle the car with canbus errors.
Bonnet bras.
Alloy wheels that aren’t load rated for a van, or even just the van itself.
Roof bars that aren’t load rated for anything at all.
And the worst one of all - surf and / or skim boards that are permanently bolted to the roofs to give the idea of a lifestyle.

A mate of mine told me once many years ago in the days when aftermarket electronic ignition had appeared on the market that a guy in his motor club had fitted it to his Triumph 2.5 PI. In addition he had crudely stencilled "EI" on the boot lid with Letraset. My mate said "if you fitted overdrive it would be a Triumph 2.5 PIEIO".

The T5 scene is riddled with chavsessories, such as,

& also the predictable ‘T5’ somewhere in the reg plate.

All i used to do as a boy racer/apprentice motor mechanic was stick big **** off spotlights on the front & the loudest airhorns available.

stick big **** off spotlights on the front

Modern rows of LEDs just don’t look as good!

If this was in the outback , fair enough. It's not, it's in Sutton and I see it every week so it never goes anywhere even remotely exciting.

zippykona

Subscriber
If this was in the outback , fair enough. It’s not, it’s in Sutton and I see it every week so it never goes anywhere even remotely exciting

Is that so?

You can see that Syncro on it's trips around Sutton in CVC's Arctic Circle series here.

https://campervanculture.com/category/trips/arctic-circle/

Syncro around Sutton 😜

Used to be a lad on our estate with a purple 1.0 litre corsa. He put a sticker that took up half the windscreen with ‘just cruisin’ on it.
We used to say, ‘what you up to later? Just crusin’?’ And he’d say ‘yeah, just cruisin’’
We were in our teens, he was about 37.

I can kind of forgive young drivers for stupid mods but for those over 25 with changed up cars there really is no excuse.
What I don't get us so many of the cars have mods that are not declared on insurance or are just plain illegal, how do they get away with it.
Above all, the worst mods have to be those done to expensive top end cars, see footballers etc.

Any and all 'mods' that are detrimental to performance - no they don't make the aesthetics better. They make the drive look like a bellend. Just imo.....

Standard around here seems to be a chavved Fabia VRS, lowered, with a big bore exhaust and a popcorn limiter. Not far from my house is a big hill with a long straight into the village, can hear them ragging their cars up and down. Last week someone got a bit overexcited and binned it into someone's garden, taking out a lamp post in the process.

I have a monkey on the dashboard in my Zafira. He jiggles sideways.

Had a friend in my teens who had an XR2i, replaced all the Ford badges with F’d ones and had RATM lyrics stencilled on the rear window. Loud exhaust, tinted windows and skirts. He wrote off his mums car and she had to borrow his to go shopping. Older parents and she was a proper old lady with grey hair. I’d have loved to have seen people’s faces when she got out of it.

I may stand corrected on Mr Campervan Culture. He parks it up where we store our stock ,I’m there every 2 weeks and I’m certainly aware of it taking up 2 parking spaces on a regular basis. One Saturday there were 3 vans, lots of camouflage shorts and a general air of something happening. Van was still there on the next visit.

Fair play to him if he does do  off road adventures.

My biggest pet hate are those eejits with cars that have automatic raising spoilers like TT’s and Audi A7’s, who mod them so they’re up all the time. I struggle to think of many more things that are so sad and pathetic.

No mod required, there’s a button to press to raise it and keep it raised

I may stand corrected on Mr Campervan Culture. He parks it up where we store our stock ,I’m there every 2 weeks and I’m certainly aware of it taking up 2 parking spaces on a regular basis. One Saturday there were 3 vans, lots of camouflage shorts and a general air of something happening. Van was still there on the next visit.

Fair play to him if he does do off road adventures.

To be fair that Syncro may be taking a bit of a rest as currently there is a new project that is likely getting all the love.
However it certainly wasn't built for posing.