The car hobby has been around for as long as cars have been around, because driving a stock car is pretty boring and who wants to look like everyone else on the road. Over the last 100+ years, each generation has found ways to customize their cars with their own personal touch.
Personally, I like my car to stand out and I fully support the hobby, but over the years, there have been some very questionable “car trends” that makes me want to poke my eyes out. Below is a list of some questionable car fads/trends.
Big Wings/Spoilers
Having big spoilers was very popular in the late 90’s and the first decade of the 2000’s. Thankfully, we don’t see too many of these cars roaming around on the streets now, at least in North America. The original idea of big spoilers came from racing, where the cars actually go fast enough and need the down force to stay planted on the road, especially in the corners.
The problem I had with big wings is that most of these were on front-wheel drive cars, that didn’t have much power and never could go fast enough. And some of the spoilers got ridiculously big; some were even higher than the roof of the cars!
Spinners
One of the easiest ways to make your car stand out from the crowd is to put custom wheels on them. You have thousands of options available, and the right aftermarket wheels can make even an old car look great. However, someone took the idea of custom wheels a bit too far with spinners. Spinners are regular wheels with an added element that spins freely once the car gets moving.
I don’t know where they originated but spinners will definitely get you noticed. Spinners can usually be found on larger vehicles like the Chevy Impala and big SUV’s like Cadillac Escalades or Lincoln Navigators.
Camber
Cambered wheels are the trend of setting up the car where the wheels sit at an angle, with the top part of the wheel/tire sticking inwards and the bottom part sticking out. This trend has also been borrowed from racing; camber not only lowers the center of gravity of the car but also gives cars better handling in the corners.
The street car camber trend has been taken a bit farther than what’s seen on race cars, some of these cambered street cars look absolutely ridiculous. In Japan, this trend has gone so far that some of the cars’ wheels look like they’ve been mounted horizontally.
These were just a few of the weird and unusual car trends, there are lots more and I’m sure we’ll see new forms of customizations which may look good to some and may not be some peoples’ cup of tea.
