Motoring
The 5 easiest ways to pimp your ride
Want to get your whip fixed up and looking sharp? Here are the simplest ways to cause a stir when you modify your car.
Modifying cars has been popular ever since… well, ever since the car was invented. These days, there’s a huge selection of aftermarket parts available – some of which are even better than the parts that came with the car originally.
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The increase in aftermarket parts and flexibility has turned us all into vehicle designers, and that’s no bad thing. But what are the simplest things you can do to make your ride look the business? Whether you’re a serial modifier or just starting out, here’s our list of the five easiest ways to mod your motor.
1. Wheels
Strap on some impact
© Joey Gordon
The number one easiest way to change up your car. When modifying a car, you want impact. Wheels will give you that – they’re the single most effective way of getting a reaction. Whether it’s the right or wrong reaction will depend on your wheel choice, but we’ll leave that one down to you…
2. Stance
Stance isn't just about dropping the springs…
© Joey Gordon
Not necessarily the easiest mod, but definitely one of the easiest high impact ones.
Whether you’re into stance or not, there’s no denying that a car looks better on its arse – or at least with a more flush arch gap! Look at brands like BMW and Audi and their sportier models already feature pretty respectable arch gaps. However, we’re from the school of, ‘It can always be lower’!
Whether you go for the ‘hella flush’ look (where the arches meet the wheel lip flushly), ‘poke’ look (where the wheel or lip protrudes from the arch) or ‘tucked’ look (where the wheel lip is lightly tucked within the wheel arch), lows are a must.
It’s important to remember that getting the perfect stance doesn’t mean just slapping air ride or coilovers on your car and then winding them right down. The perfect stance requires persistence, and there are so many factors that can stuff it all up.
A few things to consider when ‘stancing’ your car are wheel ET (from the German word Einpresstiefe, basically meaning ‘offset’), spacers, wheel width, wheel size, camber and even tyre size (do you run stretch or not, for example) – the realm of stance is a complicated one. So next time you see a perfectly sat car, hopefully now you’ll appreciate the work it took to get it there.
3. Plastics
Changing the plastics can transform a car's look
© Nic Lawson
Altering plastic parts can range from changing the grille to changing bumpers. Changing a honeycomb grille to a slatted one, for example, can make all the difference to your car's look. You can change up the front splitter if you just fancy a subtle change. Or if you want big impact, swapping the front and rear bumpers is the mod to go for. Got a diesel Volkswagen Scirocco Mk3, for example? Putting the Scirocco R front and rear bumpers on it would instantly transform it.
4. Exhaust
Some exhausts are works of art
© Janspeed
There are so many nice sounding aftermarket exhausts these days – brands like Milltek Sport and Akrapovič produce some awesome sounds from their metal – but even if you can’t find one that’s right for your car, there are companies throughout the UK that will fabricate you one up.
Uprating your exhaust is a flexible mod, too. You can choose to do just your back box (the part near the rear of the car), or go for the whole system. There are some seriously stunning manifold configurations, and whether you go down that route or not probably depends on how good the rest of your engine bay looks (we probably wouldn’t open the bonnet at a meet or show if ours wasn’t spot on). It’s also one of the cheaper mods you can do – for a couple of hundred quid you can transform the sound of your car.
5. Seats
OK, so this one isn’t always easy. If you happen to come across an already re-trimmed set of Recaros, for example, the easy part is fitting them in the car, providing they’re either on, or you have, the right mounts. If you find some seats that need work, however, time and money will need to be spent. Good upholstery trimmers are £££, but well worth it – especially if you want something truly show-worthy.