QOTD: Totally Embarrassing Mods?
The SEMA show kicks off today in Vegas, not that any of the general public will be allowed to wander inside the convention center halls. Bizarrely, given the amount of money spent in the aftermarket every year by real people, SEMA is a trade event and only those toiling in the automotive aftermarket industry are deemed worthy of a badge.
I digress. There’s a very good chance that most of us, especially in our younger years, spend our hard earned cash on very suspect and — in retrospect — totally embarrassing aftermarket gear for our rides.
Your author is not immune. Far from it, in fact. My first set of wheels was an ill-kept and rather poorly-running Ford Escort. Nevertheless, it represented the freedom to drive that your car-addled narrator so dearly craved. Canadian Tire in Gander hoovered up far too many of my meagre dollars, with many terrible items such as NASCAR windshield banners and aftermarket fog lights festooning the poor little hatchback.
Once that car quit, it was replaced with … another Ford Escort. No, I never learn. At least it was the Mazda-based iteration. That machine saw all manner of ill-advised items tossed at it, from big-buck audio systems worth several times the car’s value to body parts gleaned from an Escort GT. The engine, unsurprisingly, remained untouched. There wasn’t much call for aftermarket support on that asthmatic 1.9-liter.
I wised up after this brace of Escorts, shovelling money into a late-model Lincoln Mark VII like a stevedore stacks cargo onto a ship. At least these mods were of the speed variety, ranging from engine internals to stout rear-end gears.
What modification or accessory from one of your past cars falls squarely into the “I definitely shouldn’t have done that” category? It could be a well intentioned go-fast mod that didn’t work out, or maybe it’s something that doesn’t exactly pass the Cool Test thirty years later.
I’m not sure most of my stuff passed the Cool Test at all.
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I remember putting prismatic pinstriping on my 72 Charger alongside the pinstriping that was there already. I had seen a 73 with the same treatment and it looked really cool at night. Also bought some wide prismatic stuff from JC Whitney, drew up my version of what I thought the Charger logo should be, cut out the individual letters and stuck that on the back of the trunk lid left side. Unfortunately it wasn't the best quality stuff and quickly clouded up and became quite un-reflective. Perhaps not embarrassing, but in poor taste?
Ok, I never did it because my ride had a case of the slow, but every one of my friends with a Chevelle, F-body, G-body, Mustang, etc., put trailer lights on their solid axle. They installed air shocks (or worse, shackles, eek) and wired two orange or red or green or whatever lights to the axle tubes. These could be seen at night as extra lights way under the taillights, and you knew that a possible race opponent was cruising up ahead of you, and might fall over on you sideways. What was this about? By the early 90's, any V8 coupe I had remained firmly at stock height or below, so it didn't last very long as a trend, thankfully.