Modification Crazy ...

When you're driving around doing your daily errands and stuff, have you ever noticed those cars on the roads with totally ugly and modified body kits, huge exhaust pipes that an elephant could fit in it, spoilers so large you could hang your washings from it, some even had blinking LED lights all around that made it look like a moving Christmas tree? You have? Well, I'm ashamed to say that once long ago I was like that ... LOL!

But not anymore folks. Back when I bought my first ever car, somewhere about 16 years or so ago, I used to love to modify my car and add on silly accessories to it. I just wanted that car to look cool with all the accessories I had. I was car crazy back then (I still am, but have mellowed down a lot since).

My first car was this pretty standard sissy looking metallic silver second-hand Honda Civic hatchback that I rightly named Silver (Duh, how obvious ... LOL!). It came with hardly nothing fancy in it and it looked really plain like a girly car. I can still remember taking possession of it and the first thing that was running through my mind was how to make it go faster and how it would look with a new pair of rims and a huge (yes, folks, huge) exhaust attached to it.

But I had to wait for a bit cos I didn't really earn that much back then and needed to save up some before I could think of even getting an air freshener for the car ... LOL! But as luck would have it, a month later I received this bonus from my company and was on cloud nine and a half! I had the funds to go and turn my car into a beast!

Immediately during the weekend, my cousin (who owned a car way before me and was the authority on good places to get stuff) and me went rim hunting and we managed to add this super cool (well, it was super cool to me anyway) rims to my car. Gosh, did it make a huge difference to my car, from a sissy looking hatchback, it started to look meaner ... hehehe ...

Over time I added a lot of other accessories to it, spot lights, fog lights (though we don't even have fog here ...LOL!), modified the engine, added racing filters and a host of other stuff to it (and I did get a huge exhaust too ...). I was kinda crazy back then. I loved to speed and to tell you how crazy (and stupid) I was back then, here's an example:

A car driving along slowly on a 2 lane road with me, signals and overtakes me (which is normal) and I'd look at the driver of that car and think,

'Oh, so you wanna race, huh? Come on lets race! Let's see what you can do!'

And then I'll hit the accelerator and chase that slow moving law abiding car which overtook me and never even had any intention to race with me ... I used to think everyone on the road wanted to race with me. I really had some serious problems back then. I used to speed like crazy and couldn't care less about the consequences! Thank god I grew up and sanity prevailed and I'm a much more decent and safe driver nowadays who drives so slow, even little old ladies in their minis overtake me ... LOL!

But that doesn't mean I don't like racing, modifying of cars and accessorizing it anymore. I still do, but more tastefully now, that is if I even do it. I love walking around in the car accessories section of malls. We have a couple of nice specialized car accessories shops near my house and I can spend hours there just looking and browsing the newer gadgets they invent for cars. Some of the stuff they have are pretty cool and ingenious. Some things I didn't even dream could exist back when I was in my modifying and accessorizing days.

But that's all in the past anyway. Nowadays, I feel if you want your car looking and going as fast as some sports car, go out and buy one already, for goodness sake. Besides how sure are we that these accessories and modifications are actually safe for your car. They're all sold and installed in some unsanctioned workshop by some highly suspect mechanics ... LOL! And a lot of them are totally illegal to boot!

I say, if you really want to modify your car, go back to your car dealer or a reputable expert on modifications and use original accessories which is much safer and actually intended for your make of car. Take for example, if you own a Chrysler 300, I'm sure there are a lot of professional shops out there selling Chrysler 300 accessories that are specially made for your Chrysler that would compliment the car nicely and not make the car look cheap with those generic grilles, generic dashboard kits and generic stuff they sell out there.

I wish they did have more of these specialty shops around back when I was in my crazy accessorizing and modifying phase, I'm sure my good old Silver wouldn't have looked so cheesy. Besides my current car is kinda old already and no amount of modifying is gonna get it to look any better ... LOL! My boss has so graciously just bought a new car for me which hasn't arrived yet and you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm not going to modify that car even one teeny weeny bit, no way, nothing doing, nope. Well, maybe a change of rims ... LOL! Old habits die hard ...