#defectnotice

Guys in the modified car community are a friendly bunch. If we ever decide to create a meet, it’s generally for the purpose to walk around, talk shit, make friends and admire cars, usually with strict rules in place. In my first-hand experience over the past 2 years or so of attending car shows/meets I’d argue that car guys are some of the nicest people you’d ever meet. Eccentric? Maybe. Dangerous? Hardly (for the most part). There is however a select group of individuals in this community with far less innocent intentions. These are the drifters, the street racers, or as mainstream programs so elegantly coin, Hoons. Members of the car community, completely separate from individuals such as these have suffered vilification at the hands of media defamation. the label of the Hoon now stretches to anyone owning a modified car. Lowered? Hoon. Body kit? Hoon. Wider wheels? You can bet your ass you’re a hoon. Now sticks and stones, what little harm can a label have right? Wrong. Programs such as A Current Affair (as a serial offender) have added fuel to the fire and resulted in the criminal profiling of automotive enthusiasts, especially young, male drivers in the age range of 16 and 25 years (Armstrong & Steinhardt, 2004).

Being the sarcastic individual that I am Defect Notice, as the name of this blog, was explicitly chosen. The major fear of every car guy is to be issued with one of these little yellow ‘defect notice’ tickets leaving a car show for ‘dangerous modifications’ or for far more arbitrary reasons. As Armstrong et al discusses, many car guys will wear the defect notice and accept it, an illegal mod is a risky move and if that involves a fine, so be it. However, if you are pulled by an officer for example and defected for say, not having the H pattern printed on your shift knob, you are bound to be upset and more than a little pissed off. Sound ridiculous? It’s legitimately happened more than once. http://www.boostcruising.com/talk/764301-Defect-Notice.html.

Now, I’m not here to argue that drifting should be legal on public roads and that Australia’s current Anti-Hoon laws are wrong. I completely agree, public safety is of huge importance. Currently you can receive a roadside sanction from street racing, aggravated burnouts, engaging in a police pursuit or by speeding by more than 45km/h (Roads and Maritime Services, 2014), which is fair enough. If you are stupid enough to actually commit one of these acts in a public street, you deserve what’s coming to you. What’s not okay however is the profiling of all young car enthusiasts as hoons, resulting in harassment from police and a general bad time. Take this example from Armstrong et al (2004)

P1: “so they drove up in the (imported Japanese model), it’s got fairly dark tinted windows, the police pull them over and he puts down the window, police sees that it’s a 50 year old, and he goes, ‘oh sorry! Have a nice day, drive on’. I mean where’s the justice in that?”

P2: “Yet if it was the son driving, it would have been ‘get out of the vehicle, pop the hood’, and you know.”

What doesn’t help is the falsification and repetition of information. A Current Affair specifically have been accused of fixing opinion polls, setting up stories and constantly replay the same ‘Hoon footage’ from the month before hand. Don’t believe me? Here:

·         https://www.facebook.com/streetfx/posts/10155803744585112

·         http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/02/04/aca-and-nsw-police-digging-a-hole-over-fake-hoon-story/

Now I love cars and if you are reading this you probably do too, and unfortunately for me I fit in the 16-25 hoon demographic. However, I have never been arrested, defected or had an accident in any car, modified or not, and I know for a fact I’m not alone.

 References:

Armstrong, K & Steinhardt, D 2004, Understanding street racing and ‘hoon’ culture: An exploratory investigation of perceptions and experiences, Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety, accessed 10th October 2015, http://acrs.org.au/files/arsrpe/RS050004.pdf

Roads and Maritime Services, 2014, Street racing and other 'hoon' offences, RMS.com.au, accessed 12th October 2015, http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/roads/safety-rules/offences-penalties/street-racing-hoon-offences.html

“Nah it’s cool man, you’ve got like, a mil of clearance.”

It took about 45mins to get to Sam across some of the roughest, guard-eating, scrape inducing stretches of road that Sydney has to offer. This happened on a Monday night in a car that has literally been stuck on a driveway due to its ridiculous ride height, has scraped on flat road, and with neither of us having any reasonable idea in how to actually get to our photo-shoot location (no one ever said we were smart). But all of this was worth it, because honestly, we were both sick of photoshoots in parking lots. After finally finding China Town and spending about 30mins finding a parking spot, and apologising to the very unfortunate owner of a certain Golf R which Sandy revered into, we reached Sam and his S15 looking smoother than Alex Turner’s haircut.

With no spoiler and near flawless panels this car struts a clean shaven look that is guaranteed to simultaneously piss-off and stun any Japanese fan boy, whether from jealously or awe. A full Vertex body kit complements the stance of this S15 perfectly, only highlighted by a beautifully gutter-rashless set of Work Emotion XD9s. Slammed on a full set of Fortune auto 500 series coil overs with Whiteline front and rear strut braces, all adjustable camber caster and toe arms and a sway bar, this car has enough suspension gear to stay as planted to the ground as an oak tree. And did I mention the turbo? There’s a big f***ing turbo.  

A T185z 8cm turbo with Nistune Ecu, 800cc injectors, HKS boost controller, front mount intercooler, full custom exhaust system and basically any other mod you can think of, so if you are foaming at the mouth a little right now you have the right to. Point being, she’s more than just a pretty face.

Now never mind, the fact that we took a Japanese car to China town (yes, we did realise that), after scraping our way into an unassuming alleyway, moving various shop-keeper’s garbage bins, lifting Sandy onto ledges to take bird’s eye shots and quite possibly parking in an area that specifically said ‘no stopping’ to take a few hundred photos we realised this location was perfect (I mean, just look at how those parkers match the neons!). It may have cost us 4 hours, a Golf R bumper and a little bit of our pride but we could to see one insane S15 and avoid being defected. Awesome.

An Eye Catching Echo

When it comes to modifying cars to JDM spec a lot of the time it starts with a good base. An S15, a chaser, a supra or maybe even an 180sx. Not many people would think to pick a 3 door, 2001 Toyota echo. But that’s exactly what Sandy did, and this thing is as fun as it looks. “It was probably the best decision I have made to modify it rather than save for something bigger and better, after all, it is my first car!”

This little car embraces everything car culture stands for, having a go and having fun while doing it. 90% of the work on this little white nugget is done by Sandy himself, including installing a brand new set of fully adjustable coil overs, rolled guards and a full rattle can plasti-dip paintjob, “the paint wasn’t by any means show spec anyway, so I thought ‘fuck it, plasti-dip it is!”. The exception being a custom straight pipe exhaust that you can hear from 4 streets away.

One thing you can’t deny about this car, it is slammed. That stuck on driveways, scraping on flat road, don’t-eat-too-much-at-lunch kind of slammed.  For Sandy, his lowering springs just weren’t enough. “The combo of coil overs and my schmick 15x8 +25 Avid01 07 wheels mean you can just lay into the corners. Although, I found myself sliding out of the ugly stock green seats, so I bought two new Bride Stradia II’s!”.

In the short time Sandy has had the car it has had some interesting adventure; like having the keys locked in 90mins from home at a meet flooded with cops, or locking them in again at Wollongong. Getting stuck on gutters and forcing passengers to help persuade it off, getting reversed into at a Westfield shopping centre and being pulled over several times because… well look at it, you get the idea.

As one of the honoured few to actually drive this little white JDM shopping cart, I have to say after getting stuck on two speed bumps and being stared at about 20 pedestrians, god it was fun and easy to lay into. Its undeniable this car attracts attention, both good and bad with many JDM purists scowling at the idea of modding an echo. But Sandy doesn’t care about any of that, “this car works for me, I get to smile every time I drive this thing, I didn’t build it for anyone else”, and it’s for that reason this little echo stands for everything car culture should.