Motors The Sunday Night Philosophical Question: Boy Racers

There doesn't appear to be many around. Is it a change in what's socially accepted (seen as uncool by peers now) or just priced off the road by insurance costs?

The only body kitted corsa I can think of locally is owned by a guy older than me, and he's not a convincing ned, never heard his stereo either. Can't remember seeing any cruises lately.

So if the incentive to work for that 'must have' new stereo system or paint job is gone, where's the money going now? Just booze? Or no incentive to earn it anymore, so stay at home?

 

The trend has lessened a lot here as well but I think you're right, it's just out of fashion now. What the kids do nowadays is buy much more expensive and newer cars because they're going to look better and be faster than whatever they would modify.

 

If you want to find boy racers then look in a closed supermarkets carpark shortly after it has rained.

 

I think you don't see it as much for the simple reason the police jump on any group with more than 3 cars and call it an illegal cruise. The modding scene is still strong, it just not so in ya face any more.

 

Thats what my mates do...

 

illegal cruse ? Those cops are full of sh*t

 

Once upon a time they would just keep an eye on thing from a distance, now they break it up instantly.

 

I have seen fewer on the roads, I think a combination of economic downturn, petrol costing more per litre than a black market liver, insurance costing more for young drivers than a deposit for a house and no jobs. I think the newer higher performing cars thing may be a good point too. Why mod a 1L nova when you can buy a cupra?

 

They're all indoors spending their hard earned cash on modding their pcs. U can see their work in the other forums :-D

 

Round here all we get is kids doing laps round our road at 2AM on shitty little mopeds that do a maximum of 30mph...

 

I had this very chat with a couple of friends yesterday... How odd.

Honestly, The reason we don't see them round anymore is because of their age. Most boy-racer types are now between 19 and 25... they're now able to afford a decent Focus ST/Skyline/Accord and be able to insure it over the rude-boi AX, Saxo, Corsa, Civic (old style) of the past few years.

I know a fair few guys who have nice cars who used to deck out Corsa's like plastic fantastic cock-mobiles (yes thats a term)... but have now moved onto Ford Focus RS!

Just how it is... my lot were raised on Need for Speed and Fast and the Furious... now they've grown up and got actual cars worth driving and not sheds held together with glue and chewy.

 

The real reason ofcourse is that MaxPower magazine got canceled due to terrible reader figures ( went from ~300,000 down to about ~10,000 IIRC ) and now they have no inspiration anymore...

 

Yep, I can confirm that there are still total dicks driving cars, but they're driving nicer, more normal cars and they're not modding them in such garish, silly, cheap ways. Now they're buying nice alloys and expensive sound systems rather than throwing neon tubes and oversize mismatched spoilers all over everything.

It's an improvement, however marginal

I like the NfS:U look in the NfS:U games, but in real life it just makes everyone within 100 metres instantly think you're the biggest douchebag in the world. Just smacks of trying too hard. I think kids have realised this (after all, the consistently least-cool thing for kids now is to be seen to be trying too hard, or trying at all).

 

I actually saw three idiots pratting around on one of those in the road the other day. He tried getting in my way whilst I was driving past, so I accelerated, naturally.

Pet hate? Two stroke engines that make no power and have no baffles. There are a fair few d*ckheads around here who have loud exhausts plumbed into their Saxos and 106s. I even saw a Daewoo Matiz, completely stock, with a loud exhaust.

 

I wish they'd change the laws about noise pollution from scooters. Some of them are audible from like 2 miles away on the bypass, it's absurd.

edit - by scooters I of course mean things like this, not mobility scooters:



The thing is, a 50cc scooter can be quiet. But some of them are just horrendous, loud enough to wake up an entire street. I don't know whether they roll off the factory line sounding like that, or if they've been fail-modded by the kids who own them. Either way, they have a date with my cricket bat if they ride down my street.

 

It's because all of the chavvy gits who decide to have one go for a 2 stroke version which makes them about three hundred times the noise than a four stroke, it also creates more power when derestricted.

 

Now that you mention it there's a been a pretty steep decline around here as well, though maybe a different perspective is making the same world look different even when nothing's changed. Five years ago or so I remember playing games like NFS:U and waiting 'til I could get my license. Any time I was riding in a car I was looking around for modified cars seeing what people were doing and thinking about what the future held for me. Fast forward to present day and I've got a totally stock Civic sedan. Looking around it seems like modified cars are rare, no one cares if you've got a flashy car so no one cares to get themselves a flashy car. It takes a trip to a larger interstate highway to actually see some people with a halfway decent car, and even then it's usually a matter of putting more money into a new car rather than modifying an older model. Last impressive sight was a pair of G37, a pair of 350Zs and a 370Z all out together, mostly with small exhaust modifications and tinted windows, though one of the 350s had some body mods and a new hood.

Why is this happening? My guess is on over-done bright and aflasy cars being "un-cool" now. The bigger a trend gets the larger the counter-culture gets, eventually that counter takes over and it's more about having a clean, muted look. I'd also blame the age of the stereotypical tuner cars, at least in America/Canada. All the Japanese imports you see in things like NFS or Fast and Furious are actually getting really old. Something really common for "boy racers" like a 240SX is at least 13 years old, typically more. There's a finite amount of these cars out there and their typical drivers aren't very nice to them, eventually all that's left is beat up parts cars and the rare over-priced decent ones.

 

some good points here, the cruise scene is massive where i am and gets bigger every year, the last big cruise in the summer had over 1500 cars and there were clubs there from all over the uk, it was an illegal event but was well out of the way, police showed their presence and just had friendly chats with everyone.

the scene has changed the last few years, stupid agressive body kits aint cool any more, most people go down the "euro style" route. also new cars are looking alot better and "sportier" these days so there''s not alot of mods that really need doing.

 

The difference is that now those of us with the decent cars (I'm an RS owner. Before that I was with a Skyline, before that an Evo VI and before that an FTO) don't need to advertise the fact, and so we simply meet our own mates, go for a convoy/drive/meet/whatever and just get on with it. To those of us who understand these things more than just another chav in a saxo, it's about the people you spend your time with. You're sharing your time with people who are into the same interests as you.

I know for certain if I was to try and explain my recent ECU remap and bore-widened manifold with a lag-free turbo upgrade, most guys would either nod and pretend to understand, or look at me like I'd just spoken another language (which, to be fair, it can be).

So yeah, we're still around, but we're not boy racers. However underground things are on the rise now. For example, due to the police clamping down on groups of cars, we now pass details around via text message to a location preset out of 6-7 for that month. Everyone turns up, racing may or may not occur, then everyone moves on 2-3 hours later. However it's always at 1-3am and always in industrial areas away from houses. In London it tends to be around the docklands.

The problem is the police clamping down doesn't actually stop anything, it simply shifts the problem, sometimes escalating it.

I actually run a car club, and our last meet was so successful that roughly 600-700 cars turned up. We were expecting 50-60 max. you can imagine our surprise! The scene is definitely alive, but it's evolved. If anything, it's become closer to what you see in films, not further away from it.

The point about the cars getting old is well-made, but kind of moot. The scene moves on regardless. New cars are pinpointed, singled out and catered for by the after-market manufacturers. Most older cars are not picked for their engines. It's about their design, chassis and the like. The engine can always be transplanted, and is often done so.