How customized cars ought to be
Atty. Jerome G. Neri
The Scrutineer
THE car culture in Cebu has been evolving and there are many different groups with different styles and different tastes. In this new world of the Internet, there are tons of influences and information accessible to everyone.
I don’t know if I am the one out of style and out of fashion, but I find a lot of customized cars outrageously unfashionable. To me the best way to customize your car is to keep it functional and to make it your own. So here is my take on how an ordinary car should be customized.
The first things to be upgraded, as a general rule, are its wheels and stance, then everything else can follow.
I see a trend of very shiny big and heavy chrome wheels going to a lot of cars – it seems like the bigger the better and looks are the most important factor.
To me, choosing the proper wheel for a car weight is the priority. Weight should take precedence over the design. Avoid buying heavy wheels as these destroy your underchassis and suspension components, makes acceleration slower, and lengthens braking distance, all not good things.
Thus, know the weight of your stock wheels and replace them with lighter but good looking wheels. Lighter wheels decrease the unsprung weight of your car and, therefore, handling and performance is improved. The car will look better and feel better.
I find that the lower the car is, the better it looks. However, a car that is too low will have an uncomfortable and unbearable ride plus bad handling. But lowering the car by just one to two centimeters will give a significant improvement in handling with little sacrifice in ride comfort, so it will be nice to stay within this area.
The proper way to lower a car is to either install lowering springs, install coilovers, or install an airbag suspension. The airbag suspension is quite pricey, but you can make your car as low as you want it when parked and set at the proper ride height when running. Lowering the car by cutting the stock springs or tying it with wire is not a good idea, as comfort and handling will likewise go out the window.
After selecting the proper wheels and lowering the car the proper way, the car’s looks and handling will be completely transformed for the better.
Unlike the old days, a lot of car enthusiasts are not content with just upgrading the wheels and stance – they too want to change the overall look of the car by adding aftermarket body panels and/or body kits. On a street car these accessories do not actually improve the car’s performance, and as a general rule, are purely for decorative purposes.
With the vast amounts of body kits in the available in the market, there are nice ones and really ugly ones. It is in this body kit/panel area where I completely disagree with the way a lot of cars are dressed. So, for today I will dicuss my pet peeve with one type of body kit installed on ordinary cars. I would call this the copycat body kit.
There are quite a number of cars with body kits of a special version of their car to make it look like the special version to the extent they even put the badge of the special version.
An example would be a BMW 316 made to look like an M3, or a Honda Civic made to look like a Honda Civic Type R. I do not like these types of body kits upgrades simply because they’re a look-a-like, and therefore just a physical copy of the real thing.
The problem with this kind of body kit, the enthusiast who knows his cars will look at it and say “Oh, it’s not real, just a copy.” A look-alike car is just in the same boat as an Elvis impersonator.
The better option would be is to install a nice after market body kit. It will not have the stigma of being called by other enthusiasts as a fake plus its originality will be appreciated.
More on body kits next week.
