Dave on "Ricers"

Putting a body kit on a mid-eighties Honda Prelude and fitting it with a turbo and intercooler is akin to embroidering the words, “bonafide ladies’ man” on your replica Star Trek costume.  It is both clearly out of place and, of course, just plain wrong.  So why do some people feel the need to do it?

These people quite obviously have an unfortunate habit of conflating the words ‘tool’ and ‘fool’ with cool.  They naively assume themselves to be of a higher social status of sorts when they drive down suburban streets in their archaic Japanese imports, complete with body panels of assorted colors, tinted windows, DIY “eyelids” on the headlights, and the ever amusing sight of a dirty pod filter protruding from the gap where the grille used to be.  And let’s put it this way, the sound of a blow-off valve or the fluttering of a wastegate emanating from a beat up 1983 Ford Telstar is about as appropriate or fitting as a supermodel farting violently in public.  It happens unfortunately, but of course, nobody is keen to acknowledge it.

And then there is the sound system.  I distinctly remember some guy driving ‘round my university campus parking lot in a very stock Subaru Forester with his (loud and bassy) audio system directly routed to the outside of the vehicle.  You could easily hear him coming, and even clearly discern what the idiot was listening to from a mile away.  And if your ears were finely tuned enough, you could even tell if the song was from an original studio album or a greatest hits compilation.

Now, I've seen some impressive modifications to vehicles that were well done, looked good, and were done to a respectable make and model of car.  The paint job was sublime, the mags looked awesome and a lot of TLC went into the maintenance and general upkeep of the vehicle.  The sound system was well done, too.  These were always owned by people who didn't need to be anything but themselves, had real friends and real jobs.  People respected them

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Ricers, on the other hand, modify cars that a) aren't  worthy of being modified; b) project the illusion that they are keeping up with the trends; c) compensate for shortcomings that make them feel small and less empowered than the rest of their ‘peers.’  And of course, the results of this fanatic try-hardness are always awful.  A Walkinshaw body kit that was originally designed to be attached to a VL Holden Commodore back in 1987 does not look good on an early eighties Telstar, just like cosmetic surgery does not look good on Joan Rivers.

But ultimately, what looks bad for them looks good for everybody else.  Society, especially in this day and age, certainly needs some comic relief, and who better to provide this than some guy driving around in some random tin box making a fool of himself and not knowing it?