Essay - Christian
From Mod Mania
Aftermarket Parts Mod Mania
The car consumer market worldwide is a big market in the broad sense, with everything from new headers for your exhaust, coloured door handles, all the way to a pair of dice that will hang from the rear vision mirror. The Market is broken down into two areas one being the visual and the other is the performance. After that the levels break down again and again several times. Car customization isn’t the same all over the world each country has its own taste. I will be going in depth about some of the key car modding styles on the road all over the world today. The Newsweek article “Hot Wheels” will also be a part of this essay.
Car customization is generated from the beginning of the hot rods over 50 years ago; here is a brief history on the Hot Rod. “Hot rods are cars which have been customized for performance, and/or appearance. The term became popular during and after World War II, particularly in California, originally meaning an old car (most often a Ford, typically a Model T, Model A, or a 1932 to 1934 Ford Model B or Ford V-8) which had been modified by reducing weight (sometimes modifying the body by removing roof, hood, bumpers, windshield and/or fenders), lowering it, modifying, tuning, or replacing the engine to give more power, and changing the wheels and tires to improve traction and handling. Such modifications were considered to improve the appearance as well; often the car was also given a distinctive paint job. The term may have originated from "hot roadster;" it was used in the 1950s and 1960s as a derogatory term for any car that did not fit into the mainstream. Other sources indicate that the term was derived from replacement of connecting rods in engines to allow higher RPMs to be reached without failure.”
Asia is a country where today most of the assembly line cars are coming from. The main countries such as Japan, China, Malaysia and South Korea have cars that are being used all over the world, but as a modding influence that seems to stay in Asia. Japan to be more exact is the home of the Asian tuners which are mainly high end tuners that are mainly built up of Japanese street cars that have body kits, mechanical mods and with unique paint jobs. Car modders spend a large amount of money making their car perfect in their eyes, like “California Polytechnic engineering student Erick Li spent $4,000 customizing his black Scion tC by lowering it, beefing up the suspension and adding red "under glow" interior lights and high-intensity headlights for carving turns in the California hills. "A lot of cars can out power me," he says, "but I can outmaneuver them."” With Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association saying people spend $4.2 billion a year customizing their cars. The culture among the youth in Japan with their cars is very divided with what types of styles are followed. They are two main types of mods among the car culture, which are tuners, which are built for speed, and the other is a show car group and they are people who want their car to look good to their own taste, which usually are, “all show and no go” cars.
The Tuner side are seen by the world as the leading in mechanical tuning of Asian four cylinder cars. They showed the world that small engine cars could compete against the larger six, eight, ten and even twelve cylinder engines. In the past 10 years the tuner car markets has gone off shore into other countries and have made a huge impact into western countries. After market parts for Mitsubishi, Subaru, Nissan, etc have been flooding the market like crazy. A lot of companies have been started thanks to the keen followers of this culture, companies such as Veilside, HKS, Volk, APR and many more. These brands are each at the top end of their own market and are highly respect among the car community.
The more visual side of the Japanese car culture is one of a kind and the wacky minds of the owners of these cars are never ending. Cars come out as themed idea, with the individual’s favorite TV character or movie, colour, and just heaps of different shapes. Some cars are just full of stuffed toys and have a cute essence about them. Car companies even take some of these creative people in.
This urge to customize ones own car has come from a new generation with now than ever before are having the chance to edit anything they own and that is now being shown on television. People can now reflect their personality is even more possible, "Just like their ringtones, their clothes and their dorm rooms," says SEMA's Peter MacGillivray, "their vehicles reflect their personalities." In some cases though people customize their car for out right speed, with people only seeing the specifications of the car and never the looks.
At the home country of car modification where some of the first car mods happened, America is a completely different story to Japan. Big gas guzzling simple V6 and big block V8s are the ruler of the land. A lot of 4 cylinder cars over the past 10 years have started to make its own mark on the market due to the Japanese influence, rising fuel prices and the change of views on smaller Asian and European cars. Due to this change the university car parks are no longer filled with just American muscle, according to Newsweek, “The top five, according to J.D. Power, are the Scion tC, Acura RSX, Mazda3, Volkswagen GTI and Hyundai Tiburon.” The Asian car market in the States is mainly what is under the hood and performance; less money is spent on exterior not including wheels.
On the market of big cars the every type of big and small block cars are in the eye of the modding community. Top Movies like “The Fast and the Furious” and “Gone in 60 Seconds” along with television shows like “Pimp My Ride” and “Over Haulin’” have had a impact on the market. Thanks to “Pimp My Ride” many stars are now “Pimping” up their own rides. Like putting in loads television screens in any place one can imagine, sound system that could create an earth quake, big 22+ inch chromed rims and out of this world paint jobs. For rim and sound system companies it is the golden age with some companies not even having the ability to keep up with demand in some areas. The idea of these sort of cars came from the idea of promotional cars from many different companies and the idea of them being used in everyday cars as moving home theatre system is a bit over the top at times. Over Haulin’ is a show based on the cars being donated by the car owners family without their knowing and then the car is returned to the owner a week later after being complete restored and in most cars highly customized. The rule they follow is to keep the car in a large percentage of its original form but restoring it, plus usually a custom paint job, new rims, engine and interior reupholstered. This is mainly common in modding on old cars by the young but it’s a great way to see someone’s creativity and how styles are constantly changing through generations.
The American car culture is indeed quite a vast majority of different types of styles and types of cars, which is completely different story 10-20 years ago when the only type of custom cars people saw where Pontiacs, Ford, Chevrolet and the rest of the American car family. All people saw were different wheels and usually restored original parts, compared to the vast after parts market of today.
Back here in Australia our fondness for big V6 and V8 engines are quite the same as the States and modification has really only become a big culture here in the past 10-20 years. Its known in the car culture here that Holden and Ford are the dominant cars for modding in Australia. The tuner market is apart of the car culture in Australia but its presence isn’t as high as the big block V6 and V8 market. The bling is a very small thing among the car culture here, the main focus to people is out right speed, and increased acceleration and how fast u can get your car around a corner. This to most seems odd in a country where our road are littered with police and speed cameras, and where weekend racing tracks for use by the public are far and few. Yet there is still such a focus for these people to have their cars acting like they sound be on a racing track.
Aftermarket products for all cars are now quite easy for the Australian car enthusiasts to get a hold of, thanks to the Internet most people can purchase their aftermarket products off shore. It all comes at a price and some car brands are cheaper to mod than others, also along with people’s taste and budget there are is a wide variety of mod choices out there. On a recent trip up to country Victoria to Winton Raceway for a day of motoring racing there were as a paddock car park with as expected most of the cars being Holden and Ford. I looked across the field and there were 1 in 10 cars had obvious mods done to it, 1 in 5 with minor visible mods and the rest seemed to be stock vehicles. This confused me due to that type of event I was at it didn’t make sense, but upon leaving at the end of the day with all the cars leaving the track that half the cars, even the ones that looked stock had minor or major mechanical modifications. It was amazing to hear all the grunt and its how car modification should be and the Aussie are catching up to the Japanese car culture. With this increase interest for car owners to have their cars running like a racecar for the street it helps the Australian companies with a lot of GM and Ford cars being fitted with Australian parts. Larger companies such as PWR, Walkinshaw and the small ones such as Terra Charger, Capa Performance, these are the companies that are 100% Australian owned and run. Most imported cars such as Honda, Subaru, etc have imported parts and cost extra for the brand and to have to parts imported in.
The cultures though get along quite well; even though there is a high amount of rivalry in races and competitions there is always high respect among the car culture. One individual with a custom vehicle will respect another individual’s custom car even if it might be an opponent. When it comes to these groups these people are more commonly just racing to win against the other car, never the drive.
People out there think that the car culture and the amount of money individuals spend on cars are crazy buts to the men and women it’s a life style that provides jobs, excitement and fun. The aftermarket sector of the car industry is there so people can express their self in their own way.
Christian Beaumont s3137961
