In my personal opinion, modified cars should be about making your car unique and to your tastes and your tastes alone. Unfortunately this isn’t the case with many people, as lot choose to follow trends set by magazines and from things like music videos.
And lets face it, who makes these videos? And where do they find these people who work for these magazines? Many of them are just people who work for a publishing company, and to them its just a job. So they are probably basing What’s hot at the moment on what they saw on MTV the night before, or from an email sent to them from some supplier who has some new wheels out, fresh from the far east.
In the real world, what’s hot is based on who you talk to. There will always be people who love big lairy kits, and their will always be people who love subtle Euro cars. This is shown at the shows we have been to this year so far, there is still the usual mad as toast cars with more fibreglass than you can shake a stick at, and there is also a wide range of other styled cars, all getting attention from the people walking by.
If you do follow modified car fashion then you’ll probably know that jap cars are pretty popular at the moment. In both the styling aspect, and the drifting/motor sport aspect. JDM is a phrase being thrown about the streets at the moment, it stands for Japanese Domestic market and is basically what we Euro nuts have been doing for years 😉
The art of modifying a car and just using pars from other cars either made by the same company, or the same country. A lot of dubbers put Audi or Porsche parts on their dubs, and now the jap guys are doing a similar thing.
Manufacturers pick up on these trends and have started tailoring their products to suit. Wheel companies are releasing old alloy wheels with new JDM styled influences.
I guess fashion is just another word for the end result of some good marketing. And on that note, i bid you farewell.
Ed.
