I love cars and driving them. But the modded Corolla/Civic/Accord/Camry (why) people have always driven me crazy because their mods often seem directed to inflicting their cars on everyone else, with loud exhaust, subwoofers, and (subjectively) garish cosmetics, rather than things that make it actually good to drive.
I recognize this is judgmental and it's unhealthy to always be annoyed at these people on the road, so I clicked the article looking for some empathetic understanding - and I really got it, UNTIL he told me about his "fire-breathing" exhaust and subwoofer. So it is about subjecting OTHER people to his car.
I remember some friends talking about motorcycles, and one was wondering how much horsepower you could get out of a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
And another friend quipped, "You don't tune a Harley for power, you tune it for noise!"
Back to tuner cars, I've always thought the perfect invention would be a tuner-car-audio-experience-device.
Basically, a device that you plug into the cigarette lighter and it uses some method of figuring out the engine RPM (and maybe throttle position). Then it would generate cool engine sounds and send them to bluetooth stream / fm broadcast / audio jack, for the car audio system.
You could drive a quiet car, but inside it would feel like a formula one car, a 12-cylinder italian car, motorcycle, tugboat or jet fighter.
I would say spaceship, but those days are gone since every EV nowadays sounds like an cheapo alien orchestra already.
I'm hearing someone gunning it through a neighboring road as I type this comment and I will be hearing such noise all night, because some people just can't help but make noise.
The other day I even saw a guy in a car with a modified exhaust and driver side window rolled down - apparently so that he would better hear the noise he's making. Considering the volume that had to have a negative effect on his hearing.
If I called the county every time someone drove past my house with a loud modded exhaust it would consume my days and nights. The loud exhaust people are a scourge and I would love an easy way to get them to stop.
I’m at the point where I don’t just want ticketing and other enforcement on this front, I want yanked licenses for this after a warning, and I might even want it legal to shoot vehicles guilty of noise violations and their drivers with paintballs to mark them for further enforcement and shame.
Smoking is the atmospheric equivalent of peeing in the pool; noise pollution is something between that and opting everyone into your dumb M80 party. It’s antisocial, it causes health problems on top of discomfort, and it should stop.
I hope that becomes more common so long as privacy is respected. Fortunately my neighborhood is fairly quiet.
I don't understand either, but I don't have a problem with people doing what they want. If municipalities can regulate speed limits for safety and other reasons they should be able to.
So if you want to be loud live out in the country where there is space.
At one point my wife's 1995 Civic had a busted exhaust pipe ahead of the muffler and was loud as hell. She reported receiving compliments from a few different Civic enthusiasts, much to her confusion.
She just wanted me to fix the broken pipe.
In our family we use the expression "farting Honda" (or Toyota, Subaru, whatever) when we hear these kinds of cars on the road.
The exhaust on my old Range Rover split between the catastrophic converters and the first silencer, leaving it completely open.
The novelty of it sounding like the start of Jerry Was A Racecar Driver hadn't entirely worn off before I welded it up, I guess, but I'm not about to go around attracting attention to myself.
Not when I could see it making plate glass shop windows vibrate.
Civics are legos with extensive aftermarket support. Type-Rs are designed to be tracked (IIRC fastest FWD in NA). People often mod these to track better, and in JPN obviously mod them to drive them illegally on highways.
Civics, or more specifically the older naturally aspirated engines from Honda as a whole (including the F20C1 found in the S2000 AP1) are high-RPM engines, often revving to 8500-9000 RPM, which is going to be loud no matter what you do.
No, not all mods are designed to inflict something on someone else. Popular FL5 mods are designed around engine/oil cooling, brake capacity (prevent fading), and camber. Yes, you can get nuts with a racing-only, non-CARB DP or a non-valved exhaust, but that's a personal choice. Not every FL5 owner follows that ethos. But you can also go with a CARB-compliant DP, valved exhaust (OE is valved, many aftermarkets use valved exhausts), and even if you do a mid-pipe resonator delete, it's no louder than it's sister car, the Acura DE5, which doesn't even come with a mid-pipe resonator from the factory.
And yes, a modded FL5 is a ton more fun to drive than a non-modded one due to a single, hidden mod - replacing the suspension controller with one from a DE5 or from DSC makes the ride much smoother. Honda doesn't get everything 'right' (but they do get engines down pat).
Ofc, you do have fire-breathing 1000hp S2000s out there.
I don't think anyone objects to modding your street legal car to go 0-100 in 3 seconds as long as you're not interrupting every conversation for a quarter mile in any direction wherever you drive. But everywhere I go, no matter what I'm doing, someone's exhaust mod is there to make sure I can't finish my sentences or listen to my son, and I'm sick of it.
Nothing judgemental or unhealthy about it. It's perfectly normal to be annoyed by such nuisances. The existence of these people is one of many factors that make driving literal hell on earth.
Many of the mods make the car worse in everyday environments, outside of a pristine track.
After I got into my friend's modded-out car, we had to slow to walking speeds to exit the parking lot because it would bottom out on the curb cut. The same happens with speed bumps. Large rims get damaged on potholes that a normal tire and rim combo would just shrug off.
Add a few years to your life and you don't want to crawl and duck into a low car anymore. Stiff suspensions are hard on the back and joints.
But it's fun to mod the car and you get to drive around in an art project. My dad did basically the same thing during the 1950's and 60's hot rod culture. This is more or less what his car looked like:
He never had a lot of money to spend on it but he did have access to car parts and was a gifted mechanic. One of my favorite memories was going out for a ride in that thing in the summer with him and I would ask him to go faster and he would wind it up to about 120 mph for a few miles and it was so exciting (and, in retrospect, a bad idea). He would tell me he had to do that occasionally to get the carbon out. :)
Fashion that makes things impractical is often quite sticky.
When the first people drove mountain bikes in the city I thought it was fad that would quickly go away but here we are. Ok, they were an improvement over the previous fad of racing bikes, but neither of them is as practical in the city as they could be.
I see this all the time where I live. People doing their grocery shopping in their super stanced out civic, having to find a route around the speed bumps because they literally can't go over them without high centering.
Yeah, it looks sick. But it's completely impractical for daily driving, and quite frankly you are putting both yourself and others at risk the moment you blow a tire going 80 on the freeway and lose control of your car.
I read "midlife crisis" as "old guy trying to impress much younger girls" and then a cheap-ish car modded to be fast, furious, and obnoxiously loud seems like it might just work. Plus it's probably an amazing toy that can also be enjoyed solo.
And as long as there's enough attractive women who are impressed by loud cars, there will be guys with loud cars. I also dislike loud cars. But I'm at a loss as to how one would fix the root cause. Pull requests welcome ;)
And, yes, I share your impression. That car is about him trying to enforce attention by subjecting other people to his car.
My buddy was a huge VW fan and loved taking a stock Jetta or Passat and modding the engine and transmission while making it look completely stock. He was one of the few people I knew who loved the idea of the "wolf in sheeps clothing". The guy who pulls up with a Mustang and then blowing off his doors and the Mustang guy wanted to see what he actually had under the hood. The low key stealth approach I always though was the best way to do this. You don't draw attention to yourself either from cops or LEO's.
I still feel like its the right way to do this, but clearly in the digital age of social media and the constant need for attention and dopamine hits, its now the exception instead of the rule as you have correctly pointed out.
No sure I see that any different than the typical American behemoth truck/SUV blocking all lines of sight to everything other than a 12 wheeler. And to top it off, they can't take a corner and so they all seem to slam their brakes and cause a traffic jam at any interesting corner.
All to transport one person by themselves from home to office and back.
Here in Europe, fat American-style SUVs are still somewhat rare, especially outside cities (!). People still can't corner worth shit in their "regular" sedans. And I say this as a pretty chill motorbike rider.
I've lost count of the number of Golf GTIs and similar behind which I have to wait around when riding on roads that aren't perfectly straight. And these cars should have better cornering ability than my fat bike. I know my dad's Corolla does.
Unfortunately we’ve got one of these people across the street. He is training to be an electrician and starts his modded Toyota apparently with an amplified kazoo welded into the muffler at 4:15am every weekday. Shakes the entire house like a B-17 bomber.
I have loud subwoofers in my car, but they're for my enjoyment. The fact that others might hear them is an unfortunate reality of physics. I try to be considerate in not blasting it in residential areas, late at night, etc., but bass is bass - it travels.
Some exhausts can sound cool but at someone that lives near a road I don’t think people should subject other people to loud exhausts. Just because someone installed a subwoofer (depending on how the audio was before) doesn’t necessarily mean they are blasting it so loud it is bothering other people. Some cars have pretty horrible stock sound
I wish the car modders would adopt things like Active Sound Design (ASD) that some car manufactures are using to pipe vroom-vroom noises through the car's speaker system. It seems like the perfect compromise. The driver wants to hear his car's loud vroomvroom, and everyone else -doesn't- have to hear it.
I say this with respect and part jokingly but this is basically just a "shakes fist at cloud". And I don't disagree with you! But if people use their signal and drive sane it's not much a problem for me.
Very rarely do I see a modded car like this regardless of Make - and people make every Make/Model loud it's not just restricted to the aforementioned.
Hard disagree. You might be ok with loud engines splitting your eardrums and interrupting your sleep (or worse, your baby's sleep!), but society as a whole should not.
Live and let live is good and all, but GP said it was about "inflicting their taste on others," so I would read that comment to mean the inconsiderate things we should not let live. Loud pipes, unsafe driving, and loud subwoofers--I'll shake my fist at those clouds all day.
nah, I like cars, and I agree. I have some cosmetic mods on mine (it's none of those models in your list) and they're very subtle and inoffensive. very much iykyk. I also want a new exhaust, but mostly because I want a deeper tone, not louder.
There are other people around you who probably don't think they're fun. Hot tip: the other people you see out and about are real, thinking humans just like you who have their own thoughts and emotions and world views.
You should consider how your actions impact others.
Super-bright headlights/aux lights improperly mounted or operated, blinding you at night.
Stereos you can almost feel before you hear them.
All these guys (and let's face it, it's 90% guys doing the irritating stuff) are being sold a dream by the mod manufacturers that if they just install this $1500 catback or this $1000 sub they will finally get the respect they deserve.
They get online forum/Facebook/Insta/TikTok validation but very few people around them are impressed with their choices.
I mainly hate how people are being taken for a ride (pardon the pun) by marketers and putting money into things that aren't really going to improve their car-driving experience.
Glad someone pointed out motorcycles. While cars with modded exhausts are loud and obnoxious, there are relatively few modders out there, so they're pretty rare. And one has to go out of one's way to make their stock car ear-splitting.
Motorcycles on the other hand, especially cruisers, are a simple straight-pipe mod away from "totally obnoxious." And the average motorcycle is going to be louder than the average car.
I believe this is a big part of it. With the rise of corporations and media, we have seen a loss of any sort of public commons. A consequence of that is that I think many people here in the US don't feel like they are part of a community. They don't feel seen by any sort of meaningful tribe, outside of their job, which is transactional and subject to the whims of corporate overlords.
So much pathological behavior in society today makes sense when seen through the lens of "this is a person who feels isolated screaming out for any kind of acknowledgement of their existence".
It's not even automobiles. The entire concept of American masculinity is about inflicting yourself on as many other people as you can. The more insufferable you are, the more "manly" you are.
Or maybe it's an attention thing. Like a dog chewing your new shoes for attention, these people feel insecure when they aren't the center of attention, and making everyone around you mad and annoyed is still better than no attention at all.
I promise you it is not limited to the Camry/Corolla/Civic community, it's just that those cars are very commonplace so its more obvious. I had a full track build BRZ that looked nearly stock from the outside other than the wheels and hood vents, and I loved that car and still miss it. Even in the Miata and BRZ/86 communities where these are designed as cheap, trackable sports cars, most of the community is more focused on cosmetics and adding cheap plastic and chinesium parts to their cars than doing anything that improves driving dynamics.
As a counterpoint for practical (i.e., performance) mods being the only mods that matter... I have a F82 which has a few carbon fiber parts to make it stand out a bit. I really don't think I need more performance than what it has to offer, so making it look nicer seems like e a good idea (at least it won't look identical to all other F82s).
Unfortunately yes. Many of the people driving tuner cars don't give a shit about cars and are merely mad that no one pays attention to them. There's an antisocial loser on my street, a ~50yo guy in a modded Infinity. The exhaust is so loud it shakes windows and I can't talk on the phone or hear my own music inside my house when it's nearby. And it's a shit car. He's destroyed it. It barely even drives. He gets tons of parking tickets because it's broken and he can't move it for months at a time, but he still goes outside and sits in it and revs the engine for sometimes 20-30 minutes at a time. When he "works on it", he lays on his back in the middle of the street, blocking traffic, for hours at a time. When he actually gets it working, he drives slowly around the block a few times, revving the engine again loud enough to annoy the entire neighborhood. All of my neighbors have reported him to the police, but they won't do anything. Whenever neighbors try to talk to him, he immediately starts screaming and waving his arms and approaching them until they back away. He's an antisocial loser.
I have been spending my mid-life days pondering getting a used Porsche 986.1 Boxter, cuz, y'know, mid-life. And so reading reviews and I constantly see this refrain: "car drives great, wonderful handling, good value... but not worth it because the engine sound/note is so dull."
I just have to give my head a shake. It makes zero sense to me.
I just wish these people comprehended and cared that you can be 2km away on a country road with your stupid engine and it's still loud as !@#$ for thousands of people in the city.
I live on the edge of a city and this is a nightly thing. It's louder than the air ambulance occasionally landing at the nearby helipad. It's louder than the 6-8 trains running through town.
> So it is about subjecting OTHER people to his car.
Having not read the article yet, this is an assumption. He could himself enjoy the kick/boom of a subwoofer (I know I do, it makes music so much better) or the sound of his own exhaust (I never have personally cared about this)
One thing I learned early on was that I could crank a car stereo up to levels that were uncomfortable, and rock the car with a pair of nice 12 inch subs ... and outside the car it was pretty weak. Audible, perhaps, but not for very far and nothing you'd really feel. Even with the windows down, it's surprising how loud it can be inside and still not be all that noteworthy on the outside.
The guys that have radios loud enough to annoy bystanders are deep into hearing damage territory. The ones with subwoofers you can feel in the next lane over aren't running 12s, they have much bigger speakers than that, way, way past the point of where you are doing it for your own kick.
It's very intentional, about the effect outside the vehicle, not the quality of the music inside.
Whether they are purposefully inflicting it on others or not, it takes a certain type of inconsiderate person to say "F*ck everyone else and their preferences for intact eardrums and uninterrupted sleep, I like the way it sounds."
My 1/3 life crisis was buying a Toyota Tacoma Trailhunter long bed last year. It’s been my dream to own a Tacoma for several years, so it was finally time to make it happen.
Eventually, I’d love to modify the exhaust to make it slightly louder. The turbo noise from the raised air intake is awesome enough and I’m curious if other drivers on the road can hear the turbo noise when I drive by them.
Please do not make your exhaust louder. I’m sure you will not listen to a rando on the internet but it will annoy the shit out of thousands of people for what? Some yuk yuks? I get it. It’s fun. I would enjoy it too, but not yours. please don’t.
Odds are excellent they cant hear it. If they can hear it they either absolutely do not care or find it mildly irritating and blame it on the nearest 1500 owner.
Lots of weird judgment and smugness in this thread. This guy bought a fun car that he's excited about? Well obviously he's POOR and IMMATURE because if he was RICH and OLD he would buy an ELECTRIC CAR that's WAY FASTER (in a straight line) and doesn't make nasty noises and smells!!! what an idiot!!!
I'm all for cracking down on excessively loud and stinky cars, but the GR Corolla is not that loud, and it has modern emissions controls. It is also, believe it or not, possible to own a moderately loud car (even with a modded exhaust) without subjecting your neighbors to backfires, 40 minute idling sessions, and loud fly-bys at every hour of the day and night.
The attitudes in this thread really show that people just don't get it, which is probably why the driver's car is an endangered species in $CURRENT_YEAR. How many cars are available in the US with a manual transmission these days? How many that don't cost six figures (or more)? You don't have to be excited about the same things as this guy, but there is a whole lot of projection going on in here from people who can't seem to think beyond how you're perceived by others as the main factor in choosing a car. Have you considered that maybe this guy just likes the car?
> It is also, believe it or not, possible to own a moderately loud car (even with a modded exhaust)
Not legally in many places. California limits exhaust levels to 95 dbA or less, and I'm betting that OP's mods violate that given that "ATAK exhaust systems produce the highest dB (decibel) levels in the Borla line" [0]. Washington state prohibits modifying exhaust "in a manner which will amplify or increase the noise emitted by the engine of such vehicle above that emitted by the muffler originally installed on the vehicle" [1]
> Have you considered that maybe this guy just likes the car?
I'm inclined to give the same amount of consideration for this guy's preferences as he is towards the thousands of people he chooses to subject to unnecessary, annoying, unhealthy[1], and likely illegal noise.
If people want to roast this guy for installing annoying aftermarket noisemakers then I will not try to stop them. I mean to address the (plenty of) more generic comments like this one:
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A GR Corolla goes 0-60 in 4.9 - 5.4sec.
My unexotic stock electric does 0-60 in around 4.8sec, +/-.
So the same performance that requires a stupid amount of wasted energy as heat and noise can be had from stock electric, with a couple hundred ms leftover. Do you care about performance, or do you just want to just fart out a bunch of noise?
I get traditional car culture, but electrics embody the "money talks, wealth whispers" truism.
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and this one:
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My midlife crisis car would probably be a land cruiser. No need to go fast. Space and chill is best.
A 3 cylinder Corolla, regardless of how fast, is just people transportation at best and in the worst inefficient way possible. A normal base 23k usd Corolla , not saying anything against the car mechanically it is a great machine for what it is.
Just, overkill. Can’t go fast, need to have higher insurance, it’s more at risk for theft, and it’s not easily replaceable as compared to a 23k corolla.
It looks like all three Borla ATAK catbacks for the GR Corolla are active exhuasts[0], so you can dynamically switch between quiet operation and loud operation.
> ELECTRIC CAR that's WAY FASTER (in a straight line)
Why in a straight line? My Acura ZDX handles curves as well as any ICE car I've ever driven. If anything, it sticks to the ground better due to the low center of gravity from the battery pack.
You have not driven well driving cars if a 6000lb crossover is the pick of the litter. GM really went crazy with its Ultium SUVs by making most of them 77-78" wide with huge tires but there's only so much you can do mask the mass.
Have you driven a Miata? Even if the ZDX is objectively better in every way (which I doubt, but I could be wrong), I suspect the Miata will be subjectively better when rated for "is it fun to drive".
> Lots of weird judgment and smugness in this thread. This guy bought a fun car that he's excited about? Well obviously he's POOR and IMMATURE because if he was RICH and OLD he would buy an ELECTRIC CAR that's WAY FASTER (in a straight line) and doesn't make nasty noises and smells!!! what an idiot!!!
As someone who happens to drive an electric car that is wicked fast (and not just in a straight line...), I'm not sure why you'd suggest that the weird judgement and smugness is directed only at guys driving gas cars. I get plenty of crap over driving an EV. Especially a performance-oriented one.
I love manual transmissions too, but you're just as judgy.
> I'm not sure why you'd suggest that the weird judgement and smugness is directed only at guys driving gas cars.
Because that's what's happening in this thread?
I have no problem with EVs or NPC style cars, or really any kind of car except those that are excessively large and heavy to the point that people sharing roads with them are placed in significant danger. I own a CR-V hybrid as a family hauler and it's fantastic in that role despite being boring as fuck. Sometimes boring is good.
> Now from the rear it looks like four black bazookas are hidden below the bumper and on start-up it sounds like a fire-breathing dragon.
> Those who know cars appreciate my understated taste
This guy is immature because he has the taste of a teenager in love with Fast & Furious and Limp Bizkit. The entire article's language made me cringe like never.
> they think if my car is just an appliance to me it’s annoying when others treat theirs as special and I feel less than.
I doubt that's the point. People are mostly mad about what actively bothers them. Most recurring complaint: the noise.
Look, I love riding motorbikes. The noise they make is freaking awesome. Hearing the roar of the engine grips me at the throat as few other things do. It's exhilarating. So I know what it's like.
But I also know that I HATE it when people wake me up or otherwise bother me for no good reason. Especially with a small engine that's artificially loud. The noise isn't the same and it's horrible to hear.
There are ways to have your enjoyment and not bother other people. My motorbike has its stock muffler. Most ICE cars on the road are louder than it when idling at a traffic light. Hell, most cars are louder than it when I ride it below 5000 RPM. Here's the kicker: in 1st gear at 5000 RPM it's doing ~55 km/h, which is above the speed limit in cities. I usually ride in 4th or 5th gear in towns, around 1500 RPM. So, since a stock muffler can do this, it should be possible to do this with "advanced" aftermarket parts, too. I understand this isn't a common goal, so offers may be scarce. Tough.
So there are ways to not piss people off. People are rightly annoyed because such behavior is antisocial. Just because you love to do whatever to your car doesn't give you the right to impose on everybody else. By all means, go to meetings or whatever at an isolated place and rev that engine until your eardrums give out. I don't care. Just don't impose your nuisance on me, who never bothered you about anything.
You'd think that on a website that has the word "hacker" in its title, more people would be supportive of someone "hacking" their car, but I guess there's not a lot of car people here.
I am a car person. I have a fun-to-drive car that I have modified. This guy is getting all the hate he deserves.
You don't get to be an assh*le and subject everyone to loud exhaust (I looked up his exhaust, it's 105 dB!), and be upset if people call you an assh*le.
Anyone who defends him is essentially saying "it's ok to be an assh*le to everyone around you, as long as you get yours."
Most of these comments are like the car equivalent of Karen the 3x Brady Campaign donor and some Fox News Fudd complaining about someone's gun. The broken clocks might be right this minute but they're still broken.
The only socially appropriate ways to inconvenience other people are to build dark patterns into your app to juice subscriptions, dump VC-funded detritus on the street and call it a startup, or take their life’s work and create an algorithm to regurgitate it back to them without paying them for it. Making your car louder? That’s just rude and inconsiderate.
No hacking involved. The tech equivalent is buying an Alienware PC from Best Buy and then taking it to the local computer shop to have them put in RGB fans and a liquid cooling system, while not overclocking we’re doing anything more than playing Minecraft sometimes
The modifications the author describes are considered in the car community to be incredibly immature, poorly researched, and basic. "Borla ATAK" is a four-letter-word because they're bought and sold exclusively by the "louder = better" crowd and their near-ubiquity on late-model Ford Mustangs is the bane of people with functional eardrums everywhere. People can modify their cars and be happy with it, but if someone customized their house by installing an outward facing loudspeaker system that played nothing but remixes of "barbie girl" on repeat, I'd probably express criticism.
hacker vibes would be sharing how he learned to program the ecu with a laptop. or putting in a short throw. running linux on the headunit, etc. but no, all this guy did was put a louder, annoying exhaust on it and drives it like its a go kart. im just left wondering what stickers he will tastefully add to it? haha but its ok, its a mid life crisis after all.. if he is feeling happy and like a child again, thats totally great
My ongoing midlife crisis vehicle swerves in a different direction: I bought a 1988 Nishiki 1207 at a yard sale for $40. Mostly stock save for a new seat. With the wheels out of true, the stickers plastered over with garbage, the brakes loose, the front tire visibly cracking, the rear cassette visibly rusted, and the rack mounts stripped, the bike needs some work. I am motivated to finally really learn bike maintenance after putting it off for 30 years
It's a rewarding project! I fixed up a freebie old Schwinn roadbike a few years ago and it's so much fun to ride. I have a freebie Nishiki too waiting for a decision on what to do with it--touring bike or fixie conversion. Enjoy the time turning wrenches and then on the road!
I owned only EVs and PHEVs since 2012. The GR Corolla was so compelling that it pulled me back to an ICE. I had forgotten what it felt like to have FUN while driving. The biggest feature for me is that I could pull the DCM fuse and not get constantly spied on. The next-best feature is that I can disable the center screen. And I love my physical buttons.
The GR Corolla is definitely on my extended list of "cars I'd put in my oversized garage if I won the lottery." That and a Fiesta ST. I love tossable cars, even though I also love being able to rip a 0-60 in 2.9s on a whim and never having to wait in line for gas.
The Corolla bangs. I had a 1990 model that got me through years of zero problems, it was fully mechanical. We're still a Toyota family and same reliability: I took our current non-electric car to a new mechanic for the yearly check last week and asked him how much life it has left, he says until the rest of my life (city emissions will cancel it well before).
Agreed. I switched to an aftermarket catback (sxth single exit, lol) over the past year and while I really enjoyed the difference in tone, the increased volume level was just barely intolerable. So I'm back on the OEM one.
When my wife was pregnant, our garage had an ND Miata (mine), a BRZ (hers) and an Elise (also hers). We pretty quickly decided that we were going to need some kind of car that we could reasonably put a car seat in, and while the BRZ nominally had a back seat, neither of us were interested in trying to fit a car seat and child into it.
We actually did consider a GR corolla, but ended up getting a used evo x that's been pretty fun instead.
everyone specially male should get into either fast motorcycles, fast cars or fast boats.
fast motorcycles are kind a speed run about life - you learn that life is fragile quick. you become deliberate in making your decisions. better to ride when you're 23-25.
the other thing you learn quick - is life is never about fairness - but events.
I accidentally bought a midlife crisis car: a Subaru Trailseeker EV station wagon. It was cheaper (and more to form) than the 2026 Outback.
It just happens to be the fastest production vehicle Subaru has ever sold. Rip-your-face-off speed wasn’t even what I was after, I just wanted an EV wagon and it’s the only one in existence. Still: stupid fun and very unique car, I’ve had it for two months and haven’t seen another one on the road yet.
In 2026 the modded gas cars that are so much slower and ridiculously loud are honestly confusing. I absolutely love them for autocross, but people building track cars and then...never taking them to the track, pretending their suburb is a track, is just sad.
I recently got the slightly smaller sister (the Solterra). The Trailseeker is actually known as the e-Outback outside North America, and it looks it.
On a straight line full pedal down it will spin the front tires. Absurdly fun. Not as nimble around a curve as the sports sedan it replaced but I honestly tell people I don’t miss my old car. And I definitely don’t miss feeding premium gas to the turbo engine.
I respect the BRZ and Miata owners who frequently do track their cars. I can’t help but hope someone makes a small range but lightweight RWD EV that can whip around a curve for them.
Much of the time for a car like this it's more about changing the tone and maybe squeezing a bit more performance out of the car. But along with that there's usually a volume increase. It's a much smaller subset of car owners who change an exhaust just to have an obnoxiously loud one.
For sure, but nobody seeking that buys a Borla ATAK, which has achieved memetic status in car communities for its absurd volume at the expense of everything else.
Starting with a GR Corolla is not cheating, but he could have gone a little further. Swapping a 2GR V6 into Corollas is now the thing to do. Throw in a little nitrous or a turbo and you have a car capable of allowing you to live out your kamikaze dreams.
A friend of mine in college had the same CRX as the author and I’d get rides to campus with him. He passed away in an accident not long after the first Fast movie came out. I totally get what the author is saying about some cars being time machines/memory capsules.
Love my Model Y. Looks boring, tons of stuff can be packed and still comparable acceleration to not that old BMW M3. And no smell and no noise. Fantastic car.
also the ride, and the interior is not great though post-covid all the other manufacturers except the japanese are speed running to that same interior setup
I wish everyone complaining about other people’s choices here were forced to also post the make/model of the very boring cars the commenter drives. People complaining about others mods are doing it out of insecurity… do you point out loud clothes and styling choices of your coworkers too?
I agree with those comments and my vehicles are a 1990 Mazda Miata that I fixed up[1] & and Model 3 Performance. The Model 3 looks boring, but is ridiculously fast. The Miata has the stock engine, intake, & exhaust, so it's not loud. It's not fast, but it's very fun to drive.
I don't care about loud clothes because they don't wake me or my family up at night, or interrupt a conversation during a walk, or hurt my ears while I'm waiting to cross the street.
Things are posted to HN to be discussed and opined on. For some reason somebody's objectively entry level and subjectively tastless car mods were posted here, and people are expressing their opinions.
And, to wit:
1987 Nissan Be1
2011 Nissan Frontier Pro4x
2014 BMW i3 REX
2020 BMW M2 Competition
All with manual transmissions, with the exception of the direct-drive one.
it would be such a blessing to America if the cool-midlife-crisis-move went back to sports cars and got more of those SUV urban assault vehicles off the road
I used to love cars but the roads are too crowded now for sports cars, between other drivers and cops and cameras you’re guaranteed to have a bad time. These days I’m all about utility for my vehicle (plus e-bike for the thrill). I do miss the stick shift sometimes though.
My midlife crisis car would probably be a land cruiser. No need to go fast. Space and chill is best.
A 3 cylinder Corolla, regardless of how fast, is just people transportation at best and in the worst inefficient way possible. A normal base 23k usd Corolla , not saying anything against the car mechanically it is a great machine for what it is.
Just, overkill. Can’t go fast, need to have higher insurance, it’s more at risk for theft, and it’s not easily replaceable as compared to a 23k corolla.
I did enjoy the Vietnamese part and history of fast and the furious. It’s been a good minute since I’ve seen the first one.
The GR Corolla isn't really the same as a Corolla. Different engine, drivetrain, brakes, wheels, exterior, interior, suspension, and more, all built to be a sports car.
It's also very highly acclaimed for being fun to drive, comparable with the other fast hatchbacks (Golf R, Honda Civic Type R, etc), and is pretty fast.
Most people getting a GR Corolla aren't getting it only as a point A to point B car. So your point about it basically just being people transportation is mostly moot.
It's also really completely different from a standard Corolla.
I think people are missing the point: the loudness and ostentatiousness is seen as a celebration of Asian American identity by the author. In Denver there is a similar culture surrounding low-riders and the Latino community on Federal St. Both are a celebration of minority cultures in America.
Judging these car sub-cultures divorced from their communal aspects, or as an expression of mainstream American masculinity is pretty off-base IMO.
My midlife crisis is also cars. I'm in the process of searching for an honest to god mechanic's shop to buy under an LLC just so I have a better place to work on cars than my garage. I have a list of 8 cars I want to own and restomod, all of which probably nobody else cares about, and that's completely fine. There are some vehicles that just speak to my soul, and I want to experience the best possible iteration of that.
I've spent years on track, now I'm much more interested in the experience of daily driving. A car does not need to be a full track build to be fun. My mantra now is much more OEM+, you have to almost squint to realize its not bone stock. The coolest car to me is something that's well-maintained and shows care and love from its owner, not necessarily something loud and flashy. I think the GR Corolla is an excellent platform to build around, and I almost bought one myself although my current newer daily is a Mazda 3 Turbo. Hot hatches and wagons will always hold a special place in my heart.
That said, I have no desire for a particularly loud exhaust, although I'm more than happy to trade off NVH for actual performance.
I'm sure the author is a nice guy, but there's nothing I find more obnoxious than someone driving down a quiet neighbor with a vehicle they've modified to be intentionally loud.
My unexotic stock electric does 0-60 in around 4.8sec, +/-.
So the same performance that requires a stupid amount of wasted energy as heat and noise can be had from stock electric, with a couple hundred ms leftover. Do you care about performance, or do you just want to just fart out a bunch of noise?
I get traditional car culture, but electrics embody the "money talks, wealth whispers" truism.
Your "unexotic stock electric" is boring as shit to drive and corners like a boat. Stomping on the throttle and going very fast in a straight line is a big marketing point for modern EVs with an excess of power (and usually weight), but there's a reason the concept of a "driver's car" exists, and if you think it's just about making noise then you really, really, really don't understand why people buy them.
this car is about handling in the twisties, not on straigh line.
if you care about performance, you should know that its not only momentary performance what matters, but sustaining it and on repeated occasions. this car is made to be driven hard in a circuit or mountain roads. a electric car overheats its battery and its brakes due to their weight.
the thing most close to electric sport car must be the ionic 5n. the rest is just old people saying "hey look how fast i can launch this car on the highway"
ps: most car people dont care about performance, but about the thrill and the emotion of driving
> Do you care about performance, or do you just want to just fart out a bunch of noise?
WTF are you talking about? MREs will give you your daily nutrition, can be cheaper than actual meals, and definitely wins points against meals, but I don't see puritannical arguments about "Why do you need a real carrot anyway? Taste is overrated" everywhere.
> I get traditional car culture, but electrics embody the "money talks, wealth whispers" truism.
A few burned out - a high compression turbo charged 1.3L 3 cylinder engine is not a good idea.
VW has one on their Polo GTI but it is the iconic 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder TSI engine (EA888) - the normal Polo has 1L turbo charged 3 cylinder but even they did not try high boost.
I drove an i3 (Tiny sporty electric BMW) for a while, and it really changed how I see this kind of thing. The noise your car makes .. is wasted energy. You are blaring and bragging about your inefficiencies. That tiny i3 will out-accelerate you at every light, and you will be making a ton of noise, while it is nearly silent.
Car people seem to have got 'louder' and 'stronger' correlated in their heads, but they are NOT.
I have an i3 and a 2020 M2 Competition with a 6 speed manual. I assure you the i3 is not faster, and attempting to describe either one as a "better car" is ridiculous because the overlap in their goals and design ethos is two completely separate circles on a Venn diagram, with a little overlap that says "has four wheels". Both excellent cars, neither a substitute for the other whatsoever.
My midlife crisis car is same price, much faster, more comfortable, and doesn’t wake the neighborhood when I drive it.
If you must relive the nostalgic, early 1900s technology of generating motion by rattling metal pistons with gasoline instead of steam then why not open Autotrader and buy any one of the Supras, 300ZX, 3000GTs, or other great 90s tuner cars that can be had for the same $50k as this 1.6 liter leaf blower. Shit, there’s a convertible 300ZX for $20k and now you’ve got $30k for mods.
Writing a high brow essay about the ingenuity and hard work of import car culture while driving a modern Corolla iM and paying a mechanic to install a cold air intake. Lol.
Pinnacle of modern internet car guy is cosplaying as a F&F tuner while paying for a Reddit-approved aesthetic via catalogue and never dreaming of driving hard harder than a spirited on-ramp pull.
Self describing a basically stock corolla as a sleeper, just lol. Cargo cultism.
That is not a modern Corolla iM. The iM had about 130hp. The GR has 300. The iM had comfortable, "sensible Corolla" suspension. The GR has race suspension.
This is not a "basically stock" corolla. It's actually a really cool car with a fun story behind its design. Toyota's then-CEO Akio Toyoda is a big car nerd and an accomplished race car driver. The GR Corolla was his dream car. He was directly involved in the design and development of the car, and personally took the prototypes to the track for test drives to provide feedback to the engineering team.
It's ok that this is not your thing, but please do not be condescending towards other people's hobbies.
I had a coworker who one day showed up to work, pointed out the window and said look I bought a midlife crisis car very matter-of-factly, and I will never understand this. You don't need to do anything, nobody is making you do this.
> You don't need to do anything, nobody is making you do this.
Hey, you just figured out the entire point of buying a mid-life crisis car!
It's a joke to begin with, but if you are actually curious: One day you wake up and realize you're getting older, you can't take the money with you, and that "dream car" from your teens you always wanted to own is suddenly very much in reach.
It's now or never. May as well enjoy it for a few years until the novelty wears off.
I'm not really a car guy, but I grabbed my midlife crisis car last summer because it was the last model year they are going to make it. It gives me joy every time I drive it, even though no one has a clue what it is as it's rather boring looking.
Once I no longer gain joy from driving it, I will sell it and move back to something practical and economical again.
It's not for anyone else, it's for me. For a lot of men around that point in life this is an important mental switch. At least that's how I personally see it, others will have their own reasons!
I've wanted a Porsche my entire life. Doesn't have to be a track monster - actually, I'd prefer a lower-powered one. I want the handling of a Boxster, but a truly fast car is only fun on the track.
When I was young, I couldn't justify the cost. Now that I'm a bit older I could afford it, but I can't spare the time for a hobby. With kids still in child seats, I had to stick with a practical car.
When I'm 50? The kids will be old enough to sit up front. I probably still won't have a lot of time for a hobby, but I do have money now.
Buying a midlife crisis car doesn't mean that you feel it's a rite of passage. It doesn't mean someone felt like they had to. It might just mean that for the entire first half of their lives, there has always been a reason to /not/ buy the expensive toy they wanted. They finally treated themselves.
> I want the handling of a Boxster, but a truly fast car is only fun on the track.
This is so true. A while back I had a sixth generation Camaro SS 1LE. The handling was sublime. Think 1.5 scale Miata. Cornered on rails, begged to be driven faster, faster. And 455hp on tap, it was definitely no slouch. But when I took it out to the rural twisty roads for some fun, I found that I would be entering corners at 80+ mph if I wanted to make it do any work. That is categorically a bad idea in all regards, there is so much energy in play at that speed that one unexpected patch of gravel can end your existence. Loved the car, but to drive it safely meant never going past 2/10 of it's ability except on track days.
As compared to (much longer ago) a 2.5RS that I had back when they were cool (pre-WRX days in the US) and you could fling that thing around with no regards to propriety, and it was fun because it didn't have much power, didn't have that much actual capability, but it was relatively light and very communicative. Much better choice if you're not going for track days.
I guess what I don't get is the part where you broadcast that it's a midlife crisis. If I bought a super expensive computer or house or vacation I wouldn't walk into the office and announce I've had a midlife crisis. Maybe I'm being too literal, lol
I'd imagine that it's them doing something they earnestly want to do, but trying to lampshade something that they believe people will perceive of them or be judgmental about. Like most self-deprecating humor, people often want to signal that they're 'in' on their behaviors and not completely unaware of how they're perceived.
Probably just joking around, not serious. I said the same thing when I bought my Camaro years ago. The only better choice would have been a Corvette. If you are 40+, every second comment will have some form of mid-life crisis slant to it, so you just run with it as the joke.
But the truth is that many of us have been buying such irresponsible sports cars for our entire lives, it didn't start in mid-life ;-)
I almost ... almost bought a hat with a fake mullet sewn in just for when I was driving the Camaro, all for the lulz. Some people don't take themselves too seriously, and I'm definitely in that camp.
I loved driving a sportbike with a tune and an unrestricted racing exhaust, if I revved it just right I could make it backfire directly into your rolled down window
Cute, but you haven't really lived until you've ripped an apocalyptic burnout in front of the dude that's been tailgating you for the last N miles. Trading ~1k worth of tire wear for coating the front of their car with rock chips and molten asphalt is a damn good deal.
I love cars and driving them. But the modded Corolla/Civic/Accord/Camry (why) people have always driven me crazy because their mods often seem directed to inflicting their cars on everyone else, with loud exhaust, subwoofers, and (subjectively) garish cosmetics, rather than things that make it actually good to drive.
I recognize this is judgmental and it's unhealthy to always be annoyed at these people on the road, so I clicked the article looking for some empathetic understanding - and I really got it, UNTIL he told me about his "fire-breathing" exhaust and subwoofer. So it is about subjecting OTHER people to his car.
I remember some friends talking about motorcycles, and one was wondering how much horsepower you could get out of a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
And another friend quipped, "You don't tune a Harley for power, you tune it for noise!"
Back to tuner cars, I've always thought the perfect invention would be a tuner-car-audio-experience-device.
Basically, a device that you plug into the cigarette lighter and it uses some method of figuring out the engine RPM (and maybe throttle position). Then it would generate cool engine sounds and send them to bluetooth stream / fm broadcast / audio jack, for the car audio system.
You could drive a quiet car, but inside it would feel like a formula one car, a 12-cylinder italian car, motorcycle, tugboat or jet fighter.
I would say spaceship, but those days are gone since every EV nowadays sounds like an cheapo alien orchestra already.
I don't mind cosmetics, but noise is something some places fortunately started regulating and I hope it becomes more common:
https://nltimes.nl/2026/05/28/rotterdam-deploys-first-noise-...
I'm hearing someone gunning it through a neighboring road as I type this comment and I will be hearing such noise all night, because some people just can't help but make noise.
The other day I even saw a guy in a car with a modified exhaust and driver side window rolled down - apparently so that he would better hear the noise he's making. Considering the volume that had to have a negative effect on his hearing.
I don't understand and I will not understand.
If I called the county every time someone drove past my house with a loud modded exhaust it would consume my days and nights. The loud exhaust people are a scourge and I would love an easy way to get them to stop.
I’m at the point where I don’t just want ticketing and other enforcement on this front, I want yanked licenses for this after a warning, and I might even want it legal to shoot vehicles guilty of noise violations and their drivers with paintballs to mark them for further enforcement and shame.
Smoking is the atmospheric equivalent of peeing in the pool; noise pollution is something between that and opting everyone into your dumb M80 party. It’s antisocial, it causes health problems on top of discomfort, and it should stop.
I hope that becomes more common so long as privacy is respected. Fortunately my neighborhood is fairly quiet.
I don't understand either, but I don't have a problem with people doing what they want. If municipalities can regulate speed limits for safety and other reasons they should be able to.
So if you want to be loud live out in the country where there is space.
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>driver side window rolled down - apparently so that he would better hear the noise he's making
Why would you think that was the case?
At one point my wife's 1995 Civic had a busted exhaust pipe ahead of the muffler and was loud as hell. She reported receiving compliments from a few different Civic enthusiasts, much to her confusion.
She just wanted me to fix the broken pipe.
In our family we use the expression "farting Honda" (or Toyota, Subaru, whatever) when we hear these kinds of cars on the road.
fart cannons galore where I live, all hours of night and day. only option is to learn to live with em
my subaru is obnoxious in looks only, I want the exhaust to be normal, lol
The exhaust on my old Range Rover split between the catastrophic converters and the first silencer, leaving it completely open.
The novelty of it sounding like the start of Jerry Was A Racecar Driver hadn't entirely worn off before I welded it up, I guess, but I'm not about to go around attracting attention to myself.
Not when I could see it making plate glass shop windows vibrate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkE4-zsqYwo
Civics are legos with extensive aftermarket support. Type-Rs are designed to be tracked (IIRC fastest FWD in NA). People often mod these to track better, and in JPN obviously mod them to drive them illegally on highways.
Civics, or more specifically the older naturally aspirated engines from Honda as a whole (including the F20C1 found in the S2000 AP1) are high-RPM engines, often revving to 8500-9000 RPM, which is going to be loud no matter what you do.
No, not all mods are designed to inflict something on someone else. Popular FL5 mods are designed around engine/oil cooling, brake capacity (prevent fading), and camber. Yes, you can get nuts with a racing-only, non-CARB DP or a non-valved exhaust, but that's a personal choice. Not every FL5 owner follows that ethos. But you can also go with a CARB-compliant DP, valved exhaust (OE is valved, many aftermarkets use valved exhausts), and even if you do a mid-pipe resonator delete, it's no louder than it's sister car, the Acura DE5, which doesn't even come with a mid-pipe resonator from the factory.
And yes, a modded FL5 is a ton more fun to drive than a non-modded one due to a single, hidden mod - replacing the suspension controller with one from a DE5 or from DSC makes the ride much smoother. Honda doesn't get everything 'right' (but they do get engines down pat).
Ofc, you do have fire-breathing 1000hp S2000s out there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw2tYyBbZ-Q
I don't think anyone objects to modding your street legal car to go 0-100 in 3 seconds as long as you're not interrupting every conversation for a quarter mile in any direction wherever you drive. But everywhere I go, no matter what I'm doing, someone's exhaust mod is there to make sure I can't finish my sentences or listen to my son, and I'm sick of it.
Nothing judgemental or unhealthy about it. It's perfectly normal to be annoyed by such nuisances. The existence of these people is one of many factors that make driving literal hell on earth.
Many of the mods make the car worse in everyday environments, outside of a pristine track.
After I got into my friend's modded-out car, we had to slow to walking speeds to exit the parking lot because it would bottom out on the curb cut. The same happens with speed bumps. Large rims get damaged on potholes that a normal tire and rim combo would just shrug off.
Add a few years to your life and you don't want to crawl and duck into a low car anymore. Stiff suspensions are hard on the back and joints.
But it's fun to mod the car and you get to drive around in an art project. My dad did basically the same thing during the 1950's and 60's hot rod culture. This is more or less what his car looked like:
https://www.hotrod.com/features/1932-ford-roadster-the-golde...
He never had a lot of money to spend on it but he did have access to car parts and was a gifted mechanic. One of my favorite memories was going out for a ride in that thing in the summer with him and I would ask him to go faster and he would wind it up to about 120 mph for a few miles and it was so exciting (and, in retrospect, a bad idea). He would tell me he had to do that occasionally to get the carbon out. :)
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Similar with lifted trucks.
Lifts are bad for driveshafts, suspension, tires, etc
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Some people actually do track their cars, though.
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Fashion that makes things impractical is often quite sticky.
When the first people drove mountain bikes in the city I thought it was fad that would quickly go away but here we are. Ok, they were an improvement over the previous fad of racing bikes, but neither of them is as practical in the city as they could be.
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I see this all the time where I live. People doing their grocery shopping in their super stanced out civic, having to find a route around the speed bumps because they literally can't go over them without high centering.
Yeah, it looks sick. But it's completely impractical for daily driving, and quite frankly you are putting both yourself and others at risk the moment you blow a tire going 80 on the freeway and lose control of your car.
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All show no go is the trend these days - and not just with cars.
I read "midlife crisis" as "old guy trying to impress much younger girls" and then a cheap-ish car modded to be fast, furious, and obnoxiously loud seems like it might just work. Plus it's probably an amazing toy that can also be enjoyed solo.
And as long as there's enough attractive women who are impressed by loud cars, there will be guys with loud cars. I also dislike loud cars. But I'm at a loss as to how one would fix the root cause. Pull requests welcome ;)
And, yes, I share your impression. That car is about him trying to enforce attention by subjecting other people to his car.
My buddy was a huge VW fan and loved taking a stock Jetta or Passat and modding the engine and transmission while making it look completely stock. He was one of the few people I knew who loved the idea of the "wolf in sheeps clothing". The guy who pulls up with a Mustang and then blowing off his doors and the Mustang guy wanted to see what he actually had under the hood. The low key stealth approach I always though was the best way to do this. You don't draw attention to yourself either from cops or LEO's.
I still feel like its the right way to do this, but clearly in the digital age of social media and the constant need for attention and dopamine hits, its now the exception instead of the rule as you have correctly pointed out.
No sure I see that any different than the typical American behemoth truck/SUV blocking all lines of sight to everything other than a 12 wheeler. And to top it off, they can't take a corner and so they all seem to slam their brakes and cause a traffic jam at any interesting corner.
All to transport one person by themselves from home to office and back.
Here in Europe, fat American-style SUVs are still somewhat rare, especially outside cities (!). People still can't corner worth shit in their "regular" sedans. And I say this as a pretty chill motorbike rider.
I've lost count of the number of Golf GTIs and similar behind which I have to wait around when riding on roads that aren't perfectly straight. And these cars should have better cornering ability than my fat bike. I know my dad's Corolla does.
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They can't park for shit either, so you lose spots in a parking lot and have to wait forever while they block the aisle backing out.
Unfortunately we’ve got one of these people across the street. He is training to be an electrician and starts his modded Toyota apparently with an amplified kazoo welded into the muffler at 4:15am every weekday. Shakes the entire house like a B-17 bomber.
> their mods often seem directed to inflicting their cars on everyone else
Flies in the face of all the talk about consent. I did not consent to this...
I have loud subwoofers in my car, but they're for my enjoyment. The fact that others might hear them is an unfortunate reality of physics. I try to be considerate in not blasting it in residential areas, late at night, etc., but bass is bass - it travels.
Some exhausts can sound cool but at someone that lives near a road I don’t think people should subject other people to loud exhausts. Just because someone installed a subwoofer (depending on how the audio was before) doesn’t necessarily mean they are blasting it so loud it is bothering other people. Some cars have pretty horrible stock sound
I wish the car modders would adopt things like Active Sound Design (ASD) that some car manufactures are using to pipe vroom-vroom noises through the car's speaker system. It seems like the perfect compromise. The driver wants to hear his car's loud vroomvroom, and everyone else -doesn't- have to hear it.
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I say this with respect and part jokingly but this is basically just a "shakes fist at cloud". And I don't disagree with you! But if people use their signal and drive sane it's not much a problem for me. Very rarely do I see a modded car like this regardless of Make - and people make every Make/Model loud it's not just restricted to the aforementioned.
Your mileage may vary and that's all good
Hard disagree. You might be ok with loud engines splitting your eardrums and interrupting your sleep (or worse, your baby's sleep!), but society as a whole should not.
Live and let live is good and all, but GP said it was about "inflicting their taste on others," so I would read that comment to mean the inconsiderate things we should not let live. Loud pipes, unsafe driving, and loud subwoofers--I'll shake my fist at those clouds all day.
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nah, I like cars, and I agree. I have some cosmetic mods on mine (it's none of those models in your list) and they're very subtle and inoffensive. very much iykyk. I also want a new exhaust, but mostly because I want a deeper tone, not louder.
Subwoofers are really fun though.
There are other people around you who probably don't think they're fun. Hot tip: the other people you see out and about are real, thinking humans just like you who have their own thoughts and emotions and world views.
You should consider how your actions impact others.
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So much of American car/motorcycle culture seems to be about that nowadays. And it's not limited to the Japanese mod scene, either.
Loud exhausts everywhere - pickups, domestic V6/V8's, motorcycles.
Super-bright headlights/aux lights improperly mounted or operated, blinding you at night.
Stereos you can almost feel before you hear them.
All these guys (and let's face it, it's 90% guys doing the irritating stuff) are being sold a dream by the mod manufacturers that if they just install this $1500 catback or this $1000 sub they will finally get the respect they deserve.
They get online forum/Facebook/Insta/TikTok validation but very few people around them are impressed with their choices.
I mainly hate how people are being taken for a ride (pardon the pun) by marketers and putting money into things that aren't really going to improve their car-driving experience.
Glad someone pointed out motorcycles. While cars with modded exhausts are loud and obnoxious, there are relatively few modders out there, so they're pretty rare. And one has to go out of one's way to make their stock car ear-splitting.
Motorcycles on the other hand, especially cruisers, are a simple straight-pipe mod away from "totally obnoxious." And the average motorcycle is going to be louder than the average car.
> they will finally get the respect they deserve.
I believe this is a big part of it. With the rise of corporations and media, we have seen a loss of any sort of public commons. A consequence of that is that I think many people here in the US don't feel like they are part of a community. They don't feel seen by any sort of meaningful tribe, outside of their job, which is transactional and subject to the whims of corporate overlords.
So much pathological behavior in society today makes sense when seen through the lens of "this is a person who feels isolated screaming out for any kind of acknowledgement of their existence".
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Don't forget the pickups "rolling coal".
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It's not even automobiles. The entire concept of American masculinity is about inflicting yourself on as many other people as you can. The more insufferable you are, the more "manly" you are.
Or maybe it's an attention thing. Like a dog chewing your new shoes for attention, these people feel insecure when they aren't the center of attention, and making everyone around you mad and annoyed is still better than no attention at all.
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I promise you it is not limited to the Camry/Corolla/Civic community, it's just that those cars are very commonplace so its more obvious. I had a full track build BRZ that looked nearly stock from the outside other than the wheels and hood vents, and I loved that car and still miss it. Even in the Miata and BRZ/86 communities where these are designed as cheap, trackable sports cars, most of the community is more focused on cosmetics and adding cheap plastic and chinesium parts to their cars than doing anything that improves driving dynamics.
As a counterpoint for practical (i.e., performance) mods being the only mods that matter... I have a F82 which has a few carbon fiber parts to make it stand out a bit. I really don't think I need more performance than what it has to offer, so making it look nicer seems like e a good idea (at least it won't look identical to all other F82s).
Now, would I do that to a Camry? No freakin way.
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Unfortunately yes. Many of the people driving tuner cars don't give a shit about cars and are merely mad that no one pays attention to them. There's an antisocial loser on my street, a ~50yo guy in a modded Infinity. The exhaust is so loud it shakes windows and I can't talk on the phone or hear my own music inside my house when it's nearby. And it's a shit car. He's destroyed it. It barely even drives. He gets tons of parking tickets because it's broken and he can't move it for months at a time, but he still goes outside and sits in it and revs the engine for sometimes 20-30 minutes at a time. When he "works on it", he lays on his back in the middle of the street, blocking traffic, for hours at a time. When he actually gets it working, he drives slowly around the block a few times, revving the engine again loud enough to annoy the entire neighborhood. All of my neighbors have reported him to the police, but they won't do anything. Whenever neighbors try to talk to him, he immediately starts screaming and waving his arms and approaching them until they back away. He's an antisocial loser.
Hard to meet a modder that isn't a loser like this.
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I have been spending my mid-life days pondering getting a used Porsche 986.1 Boxter, cuz, y'know, mid-life. And so reading reviews and I constantly see this refrain: "car drives great, wonderful handling, good value... but not worth it because the engine sound/note is so dull."
I just have to give my head a shake. It makes zero sense to me.
None of the other things except the sound bothers me. It’s just so goddamn loud, like unbelievably loud.
I just wish these people comprehended and cared that you can be 2km away on a country road with your stupid engine and it's still loud as !@#$ for thousands of people in the city.
I live on the edge of a city and this is a nightly thing. It's louder than the air ambulance occasionally landing at the nearby helipad. It's louder than the 6-8 trains running through town.
> So it is about subjecting OTHER people to his car.
Having not read the article yet, this is an assumption. He could himself enjoy the kick/boom of a subwoofer (I know I do, it makes music so much better) or the sound of his own exhaust (I never have personally cared about this)
I'm skeptical.
One thing I learned early on was that I could crank a car stereo up to levels that were uncomfortable, and rock the car with a pair of nice 12 inch subs ... and outside the car it was pretty weak. Audible, perhaps, but not for very far and nothing you'd really feel. Even with the windows down, it's surprising how loud it can be inside and still not be all that noteworthy on the outside.
The guys that have radios loud enough to annoy bystanders are deep into hearing damage territory. The ones with subwoofers you can feel in the next lane over aren't running 12s, they have much bigger speakers than that, way, way past the point of where you are doing it for your own kick.
It's very intentional, about the effect outside the vehicle, not the quality of the music inside.
Whether they are purposefully inflicting it on others or not, it takes a certain type of inconsiderate person to say "F*ck everyone else and their preferences for intact eardrums and uninterrupted sleep, I like the way it sounds."
Eh, applies to all brands. Few people care about driving faster. It’s all about being “cool”.
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My 1/3 life crisis was buying a Toyota Tacoma Trailhunter long bed last year. It’s been my dream to own a Tacoma for several years, so it was finally time to make it happen.
Eventually, I’d love to modify the exhaust to make it slightly louder. The turbo noise from the raised air intake is awesome enough and I’m curious if other drivers on the road can hear the turbo noise when I drive by them.
Please do not make your exhaust louder. I’m sure you will not listen to a rando on the internet but it will annoy the shit out of thousands of people for what? Some yuk yuks? I get it. It’s fun. I would enjoy it too, but not yours. please don’t.
Odds are excellent they cant hear it. If they can hear it they either absolutely do not care or find it mildly irritating and blame it on the nearest 1500 owner.
Lots of weird judgment and smugness in this thread. This guy bought a fun car that he's excited about? Well obviously he's POOR and IMMATURE because if he was RICH and OLD he would buy an ELECTRIC CAR that's WAY FASTER (in a straight line) and doesn't make nasty noises and smells!!! what an idiot!!!
I'm all for cracking down on excessively loud and stinky cars, but the GR Corolla is not that loud, and it has modern emissions controls. It is also, believe it or not, possible to own a moderately loud car (even with a modded exhaust) without subjecting your neighbors to backfires, 40 minute idling sessions, and loud fly-bys at every hour of the day and night.
The attitudes in this thread really show that people just don't get it, which is probably why the driver's car is an endangered species in $CURRENT_YEAR. How many cars are available in the US with a manual transmission these days? How many that don't cost six figures (or more)? You don't have to be excited about the same things as this guy, but there is a whole lot of projection going on in here from people who can't seem to think beyond how you're perceived by others as the main factor in choosing a car. Have you considered that maybe this guy just likes the car?
> It is also, believe it or not, possible to own a moderately loud car (even with a modded exhaust)
Not legally in many places. California limits exhaust levels to 95 dbA or less, and I'm betting that OP's mods violate that given that "ATAK exhaust systems produce the highest dB (decibel) levels in the Borla line" [0]. Washington state prohibits modifying exhaust "in a manner which will amplify or increase the noise emitted by the engine of such vehicle above that emitted by the muffler originally installed on the vehicle" [1]
> Have you considered that maybe this guy just likes the car?
I'm inclined to give the same amount of consideration for this guy's preferences as he is towards the thousands of people he chooses to subject to unnecessary, annoying, unhealthy[1], and likely illegal noise.
[0] https://www.borla.com/products/atak
[1] https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.37.390
[2] https://noiseawareness.org/noise-hurts/impact-on-health/
If people want to roast this guy for installing annoying aftermarket noisemakers then I will not try to stop them. I mean to address the (plenty of) more generic comments like this one:
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A GR Corolla goes 0-60 in 4.9 - 5.4sec.
My unexotic stock electric does 0-60 in around 4.8sec, +/-.
So the same performance that requires a stupid amount of wasted energy as heat and noise can be had from stock electric, with a couple hundred ms leftover. Do you care about performance, or do you just want to just fart out a bunch of noise?
I get traditional car culture, but electrics embody the "money talks, wealth whispers" truism.
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and this one:
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My midlife crisis car would probably be a land cruiser. No need to go fast. Space and chill is best.
A 3 cylinder Corolla, regardless of how fast, is just people transportation at best and in the worst inefficient way possible. A normal base 23k usd Corolla , not saying anything against the car mechanically it is a great machine for what it is.
Just, overkill. Can’t go fast, need to have higher insurance, it’s more at risk for theft, and it’s not easily replaceable as compared to a 23k corolla.
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It looks like all three Borla ATAK catbacks for the GR Corolla are active exhuasts[0], so you can dynamically switch between quiet operation and loud operation.
[0]: https://www.borla.com/2023-2026-toyota-gr-corolla-exhaust-sy...
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> I'm all for cracking down on excessively loud and stinky cars, but the GR Corolla is not that loud, and it has modern emissions controls.
Of course it's not loud from the factory, Toyota isn't going to sell a car that violates noise standards.
But he binned the Toyota mufflers and installed something significantly louder.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48924505
> ELECTRIC CAR that's WAY FASTER (in a straight line)
Why in a straight line? My Acura ZDX handles curves as well as any ICE car I've ever driven. If anything, it sticks to the ground better due to the low center of gravity from the battery pack.
You have not driven well driving cars if a 6000lb crossover is the pick of the litter. GM really went crazy with its Ultium SUVs by making most of them 77-78" wide with huge tires but there's only so much you can do mask the mass.
Have you driven a Miata? Even if the ZDX is objectively better in every way (which I doubt, but I could be wrong), I suspect the Miata will be subjectively better when rated for "is it fun to drive".
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> Lots of weird judgment and smugness in this thread. This guy bought a fun car that he's excited about? Well obviously he's POOR and IMMATURE because if he was RICH and OLD he would buy an ELECTRIC CAR that's WAY FASTER (in a straight line) and doesn't make nasty noises and smells!!! what an idiot!!!
As someone who happens to drive an electric car that is wicked fast (and not just in a straight line...), I'm not sure why you'd suggest that the weird judgement and smugness is directed only at guys driving gas cars. I get plenty of crap over driving an EV. Especially a performance-oriented one.
I love manual transmissions too, but you're just as judgy.
> I'm not sure why you'd suggest that the weird judgement and smugness is directed only at guys driving gas cars.
Because that's what's happening in this thread?
I have no problem with EVs or NPC style cars, or really any kind of car except those that are excessively large and heavy to the point that people sharing roads with them are placed in significant danger. I own a CR-V hybrid as a family hauler and it's fantastic in that role despite being boring as fuck. Sometimes boring is good.
Disclaimer: I drive an ND Miata so I "get" it.
> Now from the rear it looks like four black bazookas are hidden below the bumper and on start-up it sounds like a fire-breathing dragon.
> Those who know cars appreciate my understated taste
This guy is immature because he has the taste of a teenager in love with Fast & Furious and Limp Bizkit. The entire article's language made me cringe like never.
Yeah, he's just a humble douchenozzle minding his own business.
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> they think if my car is just an appliance to me it’s annoying when others treat theirs as special and I feel less than.
I doubt that's the point. People are mostly mad about what actively bothers them. Most recurring complaint: the noise.
Look, I love riding motorbikes. The noise they make is freaking awesome. Hearing the roar of the engine grips me at the throat as few other things do. It's exhilarating. So I know what it's like.
But I also know that I HATE it when people wake me up or otherwise bother me for no good reason. Especially with a small engine that's artificially loud. The noise isn't the same and it's horrible to hear.
There are ways to have your enjoyment and not bother other people. My motorbike has its stock muffler. Most ICE cars on the road are louder than it when idling at a traffic light. Hell, most cars are louder than it when I ride it below 5000 RPM. Here's the kicker: in 1st gear at 5000 RPM it's doing ~55 km/h, which is above the speed limit in cities. I usually ride in 4th or 5th gear in towns, around 1500 RPM. So, since a stock muffler can do this, it should be possible to do this with "advanced" aftermarket parts, too. I understand this isn't a common goal, so offers may be scarce. Tough.
So there are ways to not piss people off. People are rightly annoyed because such behavior is antisocial. Just because you love to do whatever to your car doesn't give you the right to impose on everybody else. By all means, go to meetings or whatever at an isolated place and rev that engine until your eardrums give out. I don't care. Just don't impose your nuisance on me, who never bothered you about anything.
There isn't a single thing that you just said that isn't stupid as fuck.
You'd think that on a website that has the word "hacker" in its title, more people would be supportive of someone "hacking" their car, but I guess there's not a lot of car people here.
I am a car person. I have a fun-to-drive car that I have modified. This guy is getting all the hate he deserves.
You don't get to be an assh*le and subject everyone to loud exhaust (I looked up his exhaust, it's 105 dB!), and be upset if people call you an assh*le.
Anyone who defends him is essentially saying "it's ok to be an assh*le to everyone around you, as long as you get yours."
>This guy is getting all the hate he deserves.
Most of these comments are like the car equivalent of Karen the 3x Brady Campaign donor and some Fox News Fudd complaining about someone's gun. The broken clocks might be right this minute but they're still broken.
The only socially appropriate ways to inconvenience other people are to build dark patterns into your app to juice subscriptions, dump VC-funded detritus on the street and call it a startup, or take their life’s work and create an algorithm to regurgitate it back to them without paying them for it. Making your car louder? That’s just rude and inconsiderate.
Someone putting performance exhaust on their cool car isn't likely to disturb me in my home.
You know what is? The doings of obnoxious adtech people.
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No hacking involved. The tech equivalent is buying an Alienware PC from Best Buy and then taking it to the local computer shop to have them put in RGB fans and a liquid cooling system, while not overclocking we’re doing anything more than playing Minecraft sometimes
The modifications the author describes are considered in the car community to be incredibly immature, poorly researched, and basic. "Borla ATAK" is a four-letter-word because they're bought and sold exclusively by the "louder = better" crowd and their near-ubiquity on late-model Ford Mustangs is the bane of people with functional eardrums everywhere. People can modify their cars and be happy with it, but if someone customized their house by installing an outward facing loudspeaker system that played nothing but remixes of "barbie girl" on repeat, I'd probably express criticism.
Modern day tech is full of insufferable types that thoroughly enjoy pearl clutching and virtue signaling
Yes, and it inspires a reaction from a whole bunch of other insufferable types that decided the antidote was to be as big a prick as possible.
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hacker vibes would be sharing how he learned to program the ecu with a laptop. or putting in a short throw. running linux on the headunit, etc. but no, all this guy did was put a louder, annoying exhaust on it and drives it like its a go kart. im just left wondering what stickers he will tastefully add to it? haha but its ok, its a mid life crisis after all.. if he is feeling happy and like a child again, thats totally great
My ongoing midlife crisis vehicle swerves in a different direction: I bought a 1988 Nishiki 1207 at a yard sale for $40. Mostly stock save for a new seat. With the wheels out of true, the stickers plastered over with garbage, the brakes loose, the front tire visibly cracking, the rear cassette visibly rusted, and the rack mounts stripped, the bike needs some work. I am motivated to finally really learn bike maintenance after putting it off for 30 years
Zinn & the Art of Road Bike Maintenance, if you are looking for a solid resource.
It's a rewarding project! I fixed up a freebie old Schwinn roadbike a few years ago and it's so much fun to ride. I have a freebie Nishiki too waiting for a decision on what to do with it--touring bike or fixie conversion. Enjoy the time turning wrenches and then on the road!
Riding on a wheel you have built from parts is a joyous thing.
My favorite bike was an early aluminum framed Trek that I upgraded practically every part of myself.
The bonded frame creaked but it rode great for thousands of miles.
It got stolen and I haven't felt the same about biking since. Miss the hell out of that bike.
I owned only EVs and PHEVs since 2012. The GR Corolla was so compelling that it pulled me back to an ICE. I had forgotten what it felt like to have FUN while driving. The biggest feature for me is that I could pull the DCM fuse and not get constantly spied on. The next-best feature is that I can disable the center screen. And I love my physical buttons.
The GR Corolla is definitely on my extended list of "cars I'd put in my oversized garage if I won the lottery." That and a Fiesta ST. I love tossable cars, even though I also love being able to rip a 0-60 in 2.9s on a whim and never having to wait in line for gas.
I had a 2014 Fiesta ST and it was an amazing little car. Obviously quick, but could also get close to 50mpg cruising at highways speeds.
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The Corolla bangs. I had a 1990 model that got me through years of zero problems, it was fully mechanical. We're still a Toyota family and same reliability: I took our current non-electric car to a new mechanic for the yearly check last week and asked him how much life it has left, he says until the rest of my life (city emissions will cancel it well before).
I have a GR Corolla and it's great in the mountains! It's tiny light and fun and fits a car seat (barely).
I wouldn't consider a loud GRC w/ catback a "sleeper" though - it's quite the opposite??
Agreed. I switched to an aftermarket catback (sxth single exit, lol) over the past year and while I really enjoyed the difference in tone, the increased volume level was just barely intolerable. So I'm back on the OEM one.
When my wife was pregnant, our garage had an ND Miata (mine), a BRZ (hers) and an Elise (also hers). We pretty quickly decided that we were going to need some kind of car that we could reasonably put a car seat in, and while the BRZ nominally had a back seat, neither of us were interested in trying to fit a car seat and child into it.
We actually did consider a GR corolla, but ended up getting a used evo x that's been pretty fun instead.
Tell me you live in the Bay Area without telling me you live in the Bay Area.
Do you have a lift in your garage?
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Man, he nails it when he talks about that car culture era. I bought myself a 300zx twin turbo as my first car back then.
The experiences I had driving around in that thing were amazing.
Also though, was short lived. Was young and stupid, wrapped it around a tree shortlty after, never viewed driving the same.
"door ajar" so bad ass.
So, how many "experiences" did you really have, if you crashed it shortly after?
When you're young and dumb and full of energy, you can get a whole lot of experiences accomplished in the space of a single summer.
Probably at least two.
everyone specially male should get into either fast motorcycles, fast cars or fast boats.
fast motorcycles are kind a speed run about life - you learn that life is fragile quick. you become deliberate in making your decisions. better to ride when you're 23-25.
the other thing you learn quick - is life is never about fairness - but events.
I accidentally bought a midlife crisis car: a Subaru Trailseeker EV station wagon. It was cheaper (and more to form) than the 2026 Outback.
It just happens to be the fastest production vehicle Subaru has ever sold. Rip-your-face-off speed wasn’t even what I was after, I just wanted an EV wagon and it’s the only one in existence. Still: stupid fun and very unique car, I’ve had it for two months and haven’t seen another one on the road yet.
In 2026 the modded gas cars that are so much slower and ridiculously loud are honestly confusing. I absolutely love them for autocross, but people building track cars and then...never taking them to the track, pretending their suburb is a track, is just sad.
I recently got the slightly smaller sister (the Solterra). The Trailseeker is actually known as the e-Outback outside North America, and it looks it.
On a straight line full pedal down it will spin the front tires. Absurdly fun. Not as nimble around a curve as the sports sedan it replaced but I honestly tell people I don’t miss my old car. And I definitely don’t miss feeding premium gas to the turbo engine.
I respect the BRZ and Miata owners who frequently do track their cars. I can’t help but hope someone makes a small range but lightweight RWD EV that can whip around a curve for them.
Modding a car to be louder is antisocial behavior and should be illegal.
Much of the time for a car like this it's more about changing the tone and maybe squeezing a bit more performance out of the car. But along with that there's usually a volume increase. It's a much smaller subset of car owners who change an exhaust just to have an obnoxiously loud one.
For sure, but nobody seeking that buys a Borla ATAK, which has achieved memetic status in car communities for its absurd volume at the expense of everything else.
I also own a GR Corolla. it's a fantastic car.
I get it - the enthusiasm - I totally get it. I think I'd sell my soul for an 1980's BMW M3.
Starting with a GR Corolla is not cheating, but he could have gone a little further. Swapping a 2GR V6 into Corollas is now the thing to do. Throw in a little nitrous or a turbo and you have a car capable of allowing you to live out your kamikaze dreams.
A friend of mine in college had the same CRX as the author and I’d get rides to campus with him. He passed away in an accident not long after the first Fast movie came out. I totally get what the author is saying about some cars being time machines/memory capsules.
Love my Model Y. Looks boring, tons of stuff can be packed and still comparable acceleration to not that old BMW M3. And no smell and no noise. Fantastic car.
Too bad the handling is shit. It's too heavy. This is why I kept my motorcycle for when I want to have fun on the road.
also the ride, and the interior is not great though post-covid all the other manufacturers except the japanese are speed running to that same interior setup
I wish everyone complaining about other people’s choices here were forced to also post the make/model of the very boring cars the commenter drives. People complaining about others mods are doing it out of insecurity… do you point out loud clothes and styling choices of your coworkers too?
Loud clothes don't roll up in front of my house around midnight with a giant bass thumping for 10 minutes while they pick up or drop off whoever.
Or sit next to me at a redlight drowning out my radio and vibrating my lungs.
The author doesn't do that either.
A 50 year old got excited about a Toyota Corolla and everyone is blaming him for the decline of fucking society.
> do you point out loud clothes and styling choices of your coworkers too?
If the answer is “no”, will you admit that people complaining about noise are, in fact, complaining because of the noise?
I agree with those comments and my vehicles are a 1990 Mazda Miata that I fixed up[1] & and Model 3 Performance. The Model 3 looks boring, but is ridiculously fast. The Miata has the stock engine, intake, & exhaust, so it's not loud. It's not fast, but it's very fun to drive.
I don't care about loud clothes because they don't wake me or my family up at night, or interrupt a conversation during a walk, or hurt my ears while I'm waiting to cross the street.
1. https://geoff.greer.fm/miata/
Things are posted to HN to be discussed and opined on. For some reason somebody's objectively entry level and subjectively tastless car mods were posted here, and people are expressing their opinions.
And, to wit: 1987 Nissan Be1 2011 Nissan Frontier Pro4x 2014 BMW i3 REX 2020 BMW M2 Competition
All with manual transmissions, with the exception of the direct-drive one.
I'm past mid life, but my fall back cars to my youth have been convertibles. The last round being SLK's.
it would be such a blessing to America if the cool-midlife-crisis-move went back to sports cars and got more of those SUV urban assault vehicles off the road
I used to love cars but the roads are too crowded now for sports cars, between other drivers and cops and cameras you’re guaranteed to have a bad time. These days I’m all about utility for my vehicle (plus e-bike for the thrill). I do miss the stick shift sometimes though.
My midlife crisis car would probably be a land cruiser. No need to go fast. Space and chill is best.
A 3 cylinder Corolla, regardless of how fast, is just people transportation at best and in the worst inefficient way possible. A normal base 23k usd Corolla , not saying anything against the car mechanically it is a great machine for what it is.
Just, overkill. Can’t go fast, need to have higher insurance, it’s more at risk for theft, and it’s not easily replaceable as compared to a 23k corolla.
I did enjoy the Vietnamese part and history of fast and the furious. It’s been a good minute since I’ve seen the first one.
The GR Corolla isn't really the same as a Corolla. Different engine, drivetrain, brakes, wheels, exterior, interior, suspension, and more, all built to be a sports car.
It's also very highly acclaimed for being fun to drive, comparable with the other fast hatchbacks (Golf R, Honda Civic Type R, etc), and is pretty fast.
Most people getting a GR Corolla aren't getting it only as a point A to point B car. So your point about it basically just being people transportation is mostly moot.
It's also really completely different from a standard Corolla.
This was a great article. As for movies, be the change you want to see. For example,
Fish, Prawn, Crab is an indie Asian American movie in development.
You had me at All-wheel drive
I think people are missing the point: the loudness and ostentatiousness is seen as a celebration of Asian American identity by the author. In Denver there is a similar culture surrounding low-riders and the Latino community on Federal St. Both are a celebration of minority cultures in America.
Judging these car sub-cultures divorced from their communal aspects, or as an expression of mainstream American masculinity is pretty off-base IMO.
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Damn a GR Corolla is one of my dream cars. Super cool!
My midlife crisis is also cars. I'm in the process of searching for an honest to god mechanic's shop to buy under an LLC just so I have a better place to work on cars than my garage. I have a list of 8 cars I want to own and restomod, all of which probably nobody else cares about, and that's completely fine. There are some vehicles that just speak to my soul, and I want to experience the best possible iteration of that.
I've spent years on track, now I'm much more interested in the experience of daily driving. A car does not need to be a full track build to be fun. My mantra now is much more OEM+, you have to almost squint to realize its not bone stock. The coolest car to me is something that's well-maintained and shows care and love from its owner, not necessarily something loud and flashy. I think the GR Corolla is an excellent platform to build around, and I almost bought one myself although my current newer daily is a Mazda 3 Turbo. Hot hatches and wagons will always hold a special place in my heart.
That said, I have no desire for a particularly loud exhaust, although I'm more than happy to trade off NVH for actual performance.
Anyone who modifies their car to "sound like a fire breathing dragon" is a mouth breathing loser.
> "Now from the rear it looks like four black bazookas are hidden below the bumper and on start-up it sounds like a fire-breathing dragon"
Ah yes, the "everybody in a 3 mile radius must know how much I spent on my exhaust"-mobile
I'm sure the author is a nice guy, but there's nothing I find more obnoxious than someone driving down a quiet neighbor with a vehicle they've modified to be intentionally loud.
In an alternate universe the cannonball runners, with their cars silent, unassuming, but blazingly fast won over the car modding scene
A GR Corolla goes 0-60 in 4.9 - 5.4sec.
My unexotic stock electric does 0-60 in around 4.8sec, +/-.
So the same performance that requires a stupid amount of wasted energy as heat and noise can be had from stock electric, with a couple hundred ms leftover. Do you care about performance, or do you just want to just fart out a bunch of noise?
I get traditional car culture, but electrics embody the "money talks, wealth whispers" truism.
Your "unexotic stock electric" is boring as shit to drive and corners like a boat. Stomping on the throttle and going very fast in a straight line is a big marketing point for modern EVs with an excess of power (and usually weight), but there's a reason the concept of a "driver's car" exists, and if you think it's just about making noise then you really, really, really don't understand why people buy them.
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this car is about handling in the twisties, not on straigh line.
if you care about performance, you should know that its not only momentary performance what matters, but sustaining it and on repeated occasions. this car is made to be driven hard in a circuit or mountain roads. a electric car overheats its battery and its brakes due to their weight.
the thing most close to electric sport car must be the ionic 5n. the rest is just old people saying "hey look how fast i can launch this car on the highway"
ps: most car people dont care about performance, but about the thrill and the emotion of driving
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> Do you care about performance, or do you just want to just fart out a bunch of noise?
WTF are you talking about? MREs will give you your daily nutrition, can be cheaper than actual meals, and definitely wins points against meals, but I don't see puritannical arguments about "Why do you need a real carrot anyway? Taste is overrated" everywhere.
> I get traditional car culture, but electrics embody the "money talks, wealth whispers" truism.
Sorry, wrong. It's basically lack of taste.
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Just like my neighbors with Harleys that drunk drive home at 2a revving the engine.
There is nothing like the rage I feel when a car/motorcycle is moving 5mph in heavy traffic doing nothing but revving the engine nonstop.
My car has a 3.5L V6 and is almost silent. The only reason to fit one of those exhausts is to be an arsehole to everyone around you.
A few burned out - a high compression turbo charged 1.3L 3 cylinder engine is not a good idea.
VW has one on their Polo GTI but it is the iconic 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder TSI engine (EA888) - the normal Polo has 1L turbo charged 3 cylinder but even they did not try high boost.
I drove an i3 (Tiny sporty electric BMW) for a while, and it really changed how I see this kind of thing. The noise your car makes .. is wasted energy. You are blaring and bragging about your inefficiencies. That tiny i3 will out-accelerate you at every light, and you will be making a ton of noise, while it is nearly silent.
Car people seem to have got 'louder' and 'stronger' correlated in their heads, but they are NOT.
I have an i3 and a 2020 M2 Competition with a 6 speed manual. I assure you the i3 is not faster, and attempting to describe either one as a "better car" is ridiculous because the overlap in their goals and design ethos is two completely separate circles on a Venn diagram, with a little overlap that says "has four wheels". Both excellent cars, neither a substitute for the other whatsoever.
My midlife crisis car is same price, much faster, more comfortable, and doesn’t wake the neighborhood when I drive it.
If you must relive the nostalgic, early 1900s technology of generating motion by rattling metal pistons with gasoline instead of steam then why not open Autotrader and buy any one of the Supras, 300ZX, 3000GTs, or other great 90s tuner cars that can be had for the same $50k as this 1.6 liter leaf blower. Shit, there’s a convertible 300ZX for $20k and now you’ve got $30k for mods.
If it isn't a blatant cry for attention can it really be considered a midlife crisis car?
I mean, if this isn't the place to share this video, I'm not sure where IS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLJETZyfb7I
Fun to drive?
Translation: reckless driver.
Thanks for endangering us.
Then again my age 50 midlife crisis was spent hooking up with 23 year olds on Feeld and FetLife.
Writing a high brow essay about the ingenuity and hard work of import car culture while driving a modern Corolla iM and paying a mechanic to install a cold air intake. Lol.
Pinnacle of modern internet car guy is cosplaying as a F&F tuner while paying for a Reddit-approved aesthetic via catalogue and never dreaming of driving hard harder than a spirited on-ramp pull.
Self describing a basically stock corolla as a sleeper, just lol. Cargo cultism.
That is not a modern Corolla iM. The iM had about 130hp. The GR has 300. The iM had comfortable, "sensible Corolla" suspension. The GR has race suspension.
This is not a "basically stock" corolla. It's actually a really cool car with a fun story behind its design. Toyota's then-CEO Akio Toyoda is a big car nerd and an accomplished race car driver. The GR Corolla was his dream car. He was directly involved in the design and development of the car, and personally took the prototypes to the track for test drives to provide feedback to the engineering team.
It's ok that this is not your thing, but please do not be condescending towards other people's hobbies.
That's a whole lot of words to say "Corrola with a bigger turbo and a hard durometer poly bushing kit".
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I had a coworker who one day showed up to work, pointed out the window and said look I bought a midlife crisis car very matter-of-factly, and I will never understand this. You don't need to do anything, nobody is making you do this.
> You don't need to do anything, nobody is making you do this.
Hey, you just figured out the entire point of buying a mid-life crisis car!
It's a joke to begin with, but if you are actually curious: One day you wake up and realize you're getting older, you can't take the money with you, and that "dream car" from your teens you always wanted to own is suddenly very much in reach.
It's now or never. May as well enjoy it for a few years until the novelty wears off.
I'm not really a car guy, but I grabbed my midlife crisis car last summer because it was the last model year they are going to make it. It gives me joy every time I drive it, even though no one has a clue what it is as it's rather boring looking.
Once I no longer gain joy from driving it, I will sell it and move back to something practical and economical again.
It's not for anyone else, it's for me. For a lot of men around that point in life this is an important mental switch. At least that's how I personally see it, others will have their own reasons!
I've wanted a Porsche my entire life. Doesn't have to be a track monster - actually, I'd prefer a lower-powered one. I want the handling of a Boxster, but a truly fast car is only fun on the track.
When I was young, I couldn't justify the cost. Now that I'm a bit older I could afford it, but I can't spare the time for a hobby. With kids still in child seats, I had to stick with a practical car.
When I'm 50? The kids will be old enough to sit up front. I probably still won't have a lot of time for a hobby, but I do have money now.
Buying a midlife crisis car doesn't mean that you feel it's a rite of passage. It doesn't mean someone felt like they had to. It might just mean that for the entire first half of their lives, there has always been a reason to /not/ buy the expensive toy they wanted. They finally treated themselves.
> I want the handling of a Boxster, but a truly fast car is only fun on the track.
This is so true. A while back I had a sixth generation Camaro SS 1LE. The handling was sublime. Think 1.5 scale Miata. Cornered on rails, begged to be driven faster, faster. And 455hp on tap, it was definitely no slouch. But when I took it out to the rural twisty roads for some fun, I found that I would be entering corners at 80+ mph if I wanted to make it do any work. That is categorically a bad idea in all regards, there is so much energy in play at that speed that one unexpected patch of gravel can end your existence. Loved the car, but to drive it safely meant never going past 2/10 of it's ability except on track days.
As compared to (much longer ago) a 2.5RS that I had back when they were cool (pre-WRX days in the US) and you could fling that thing around with no regards to propriety, and it was fun because it didn't have much power, didn't have that much actual capability, but it was relatively light and very communicative. Much better choice if you're not going for track days.
I guess what I don't get is the part where you broadcast that it's a midlife crisis. If I bought a super expensive computer or house or vacation I wouldn't walk into the office and announce I've had a midlife crisis. Maybe I'm being too literal, lol
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I'd imagine that it's them doing something they earnestly want to do, but trying to lampshade something that they believe people will perceive of them or be judgmental about. Like most self-deprecating humor, people often want to signal that they're 'in' on their behaviors and not completely unaware of how they're perceived.
Probably just joking around, not serious. I said the same thing when I bought my Camaro years ago. The only better choice would have been a Corvette. If you are 40+, every second comment will have some form of mid-life crisis slant to it, so you just run with it as the joke.
But the truth is that many of us have been buying such irresponsible sports cars for our entire lives, it didn't start in mid-life ;-)
I almost ... almost bought a hat with a fake mullet sewn in just for when I was driving the Camaro, all for the lulz. Some people don't take themselves too seriously, and I'm definitely in that camp.
I loved driving a sportbike with a tune and an unrestricted racing exhaust, if I revved it just right I could make it backfire directly into your rolled down window
This is a genuine question and not intended as an insult: do you have a personality disorder?
Eh, you ride a bike long enough and you're more or less forced into this level of hostility toward the drivers around you.
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Cute, but you haven't really lived until you've ripped an apocalyptic burnout in front of the dude that's been tailgating you for the last N miles. Trading ~1k worth of tire wear for coating the front of their car with rock chips and molten asphalt is a damn good deal.
$1K? And I thought my tires were expensive, damn...