The Top 5 Things I Don't Understand About Men and Cars

Guys are just really dumb I guess...
I know a guy who put a huge wing on the back of his car. Only problem was, aside from the sheer ridiculousness, it was so big he could no longer fit his car through his garage door.
Also: guys with racing seatbelts.... really?

Allow me to provide as much logic as possible in a short amount of time.
5. Mostly correct, the only performance gain is that bigger wheels with lower profile tires have less sidewall warping, which can result in better cornering at speed.
4. Technically, warm rubber has better grip than cold (up to a point). This is part of why pro drag racers do a burnout.
3. I hate fart can exhausts as much as the next guy. However, most aftermarket exhaust, even annoying sounding ones, do improve performance and/or decrease weight.
2. Yeah, no real logical reason here, unless the engine is cold and needs to be warmed up (revving accomplishes this faster than idling) or if the person drives a stick, and is going to drop the clutch for a power launch.
1. I got nothing...

I thought a chick was writing this until I read the beginning to #4. Dude you really don't understand why cars are fucking awesome? Yea I agree truck nuts and some loud exhausts on a honda civic are gay as fuck, but burning out is badass and if revving an engine isn't music to your ears than idk what to tell ya man, cause you prolly just wouldn't understand.

Maybe it's just me but I think that Andrei has found a very sublime way to say that he really has an incredibly big penis ;)

Third Anon, you just might be on to something.

Awesome as usual!

I do understand men, but I don't understand cars. So long as it gets you from A to B, is a nice colour and has ample room in both the back seat and the trunk, I'm good to go!

Truck Nutz are just stupid, and completely pointless, unless the truck is powered by semen instead of diesel.

And sledgehammer cocks can be nice to look at, but that's about it, as long as you want to keep your internal organs, well, internal!

lol
nice topic, and i agree on most of it...
about the sledgehammer topic, well that's the stupidity itself.
How in hell people's thinking ended up like this?!?

Haha, well Andrei...
Ego is NOT the main problem between men and women when it comes to that.
It's the lack of self esteem. Just think of it and guys are not ALWAYS insist on driving. ;)
anyways Thanks alot

A guy that isn't obsessed with his vehicle.. You are every girl's dream

You're very welcome! I live in the deep south so it's incredibly refreshing to hear of a man not in love with a hunk of metal.

your missing aaaaaalllll of the main points and objectives here. its a simple matter of understanding, and in that department, i excel

1st and foremost, you must understand that your lumping all car guys into one group, and also dubbing them the attention whores who think they are the be all, end all gods gift to humanity. you have to consider that ALL groups of humanity have ALL types of people. there are whiney attention whores who think they are the greatest thing since sliced bread doing the exact same job you do every day. so any slandering of car people is simply unwarranted and invalid.
also, we have a term for people who do stupid things with cars, like huge wings on thier work beater honda civic, the 100 dollar advanced auto fart can exhaust that is not only loud but doesnt even sound good to other car guys, the the air/fuel ratio gauge in the dash of the factory tuned car with no performance mods at all, the reving at strangers in random parking lots or at red lights... that term is "ricer" and i will be using that term a lot here. a ricer is someone who does all kinds of stupid thing to thier car for the "cool" factor. what they dont know is its not cool, and everyone else is making fun of them behind thier backs, EXCEPT of course for the other ricers, who actually think the non-functional, glue on hood scoop on his 97 cavalier is awesome. only ricers think other ricers cars a cool, and its a sad sad thing.
we, as passionate car people, frown uppon such childish acts of stupidity and ignorance. i say ignorance because they think they are cool and are ignorant to even the car enthusiasts around them making fun of them

but anyway, on with some explinations.

5) im going to be refering to this example a lot in this comment, so pay attention. why do women like jewelry? why do star war buffs collect dolls? why do comic collectors druel over original superman commics? why do people only play videogames they are good at? it comes down to a few different things, some examples being status, passion, pride and being a ricer.
dubs can 99.999% of the time be placed in the status area here. there is no performance multiplier here and nothing special or nestalgic about them, only that G-Thuggin over there thinks "its dope yo!" but its a matter of having bigger, shinnier, more expensive rims than the next guy. however if its 20 inch rims on a beat to hell geo metro (yes, ive seen it) then its called being a ricer
i personally think huge rims are stupid and wouldnt waste my money. i own 3 modified all wheel drive, turbocharged 1991 mitsubishi ecplipses that i frequently race at tracks all around my area, none of them have begger than 17 inch rims, one actually has 15's. hell, my 74 ford f-100 has 9 inches of suspension lift and 40 inch tall tires and still has 15 inch rims. BUT, i understand why they do it, and i say to each his own, let them have thier fun with big rims.

4) burning rubber decreases traction - false on all accounts.
spinning your tires, as mentioned in another comment, warms the tires and ads a thin layer of hot rubber to the area you did the burn out, both of which greatly increase traction.
also, tires with NO tread have better traction than tires with any amount of tread, at least in dry weather and on paved roads. not only do the gaps in treaded tires take rubber away from the contact patch (the surface area of the tire that is actually in contact with the road) but it also allows the rubber to bend and flex and "roll" in a way that will cause your car to basically skid around turns rather than handling them with complete control and responsiveness.
also, burning out is display of the vehicles power, which from one REAL car enthusiast to another is pretty damn awesome. from ricer to enthusiast however? just gives us something to point and laugh at.
now, as far as your average kid on the street in his 2 wheel drive s-10 pickup or honda civic doing one wheel burnouts, thats, well, ricer. when a 69 comaro ss with a twin carbbed 350 small block lays waste to a set of 12 inch wide performance tires, THAT gets me off like a red sunset to a woman.

3) loud cars. well, like i said before, if its a true performance piece meant to increase power and remove weight from the car AND it sounds good, kudos. if its a cheapo coffee can bumble bee muffler they had laying on the shelf at advanced auto, and it neither increases performance OR sounds good, your a ricer.
the sound of a v8 roaring out a set of 3 inch dual exhausts is music to any car guys ears, even the ricers. but that weedwacker sound you hear going past your work 47 times a day is not. that guy is almost certainly a ricer. there really isnt much else i can explain here, if your not a car guy then you wouldnt know what sounded good and what was just loud and obnoxious. i personally think loud v-twin motorcycles are incredibly obnoxious sounding, because the guys rev them to thier limit every gear and i have literally temporarly lost hearing from driving beside them in tunnels before

2) if a guy is reving his engine on his piece of shit honda accord in the middle of a parkin lot of strangers or while goin down the road, you can put money on him being a ricer. if its a nice car and hes in the midst of other car enthusiasts, hes just giving them a taste of bliss, because thats what a good sounding car is to car guys. the ricers, again, like always, are only doing it because they think its cool. think of someone you know who started smoking in middle or high school because thier friends were smoking too. they just want to be cool.

1) i have nothing here either lol its the bumper sticker effect. some guy came up with a little trinket for his car, other people thought it was cool and it eventually turned into a multi million dollar business. theoretically its a metaphoric gesture, as you mentioned, "my truck has balls!" trucks are suppose to be big, beafy, rugged work vehicles, after all. but 90% of the people who buy them actually buy them because they think its cool or funny that thier truck has a set of nuts

so basically, everything that pisses you off is basically people trying to be cool, or ricers in other words, doing stupid things. just like the emo kids at school you to annoy me, they were all doing it "to be different" or to "not conform to scociety" but what they were really doing was dressing like the other 300 fags at my school who said the same exact thing. my freshmen year i remember that being a very rare thing. people dressed like that and listened to the music because they liked the music and the style, it was "them" so to speak. by my senior year half the freshmen and sophmores in the school were dressed like that, but couldnt even tell me thier favorite emo or hardcore bands name, or if they did it was the same one of 3 or 4 names i heared over and over, because they would just pic the most popular one they knew of.

there are a million other things im sure car guys do that make no sense, but put it this way, if someone cant give you a performance oriented answer as to why they are doing what they are doing, they are probably a ricer. real car enthusiasts only annoy thier significant other lol and let me tell you, the women who manage to stay with a car enthusiast will learn to HATE cars haha. i know when i tell my old lady i cant go out to eat with her that night because i have to put a new drag link on my truck, she is no happy camper

i misse a lot of the points i wanted to discuss there but what i did cover pretty much covers everything else as well. if you have any oter questions, dont hesitate to ask!

Y'know, man, your side of the argument I perfectly understand, as I do of a woman's POV. Though to be fair, my mother likes cars, she likes muscle cars, and can watch Top Gear with me. Granted, she isn't "into" cars per se, but she can appreciate them.

But as that other guy said, for the most part those guys are ricers, which get their name from having modified Japanese imports. Just look at any of the Fast and Furious movies - my eyes roll just thinking about them. "All show and no go." That's what your article here has covered. The BAD parts of our car culture.

Know that term "all fun and games until someone gets poked in the eye"? That describes what you're describing. The guys who ruin it for the rest of us, i.e. guys like myself who truly appreciate cars. But as a result, the overwhelming majority of society thinks we're all over-compensating iditots, and I don't blame them.

But it works the other way too: the majority of Lamborghini Gallardos sold were in orange, the color attention-seekers paint their cars. It's a fact, like how black is the color of controlling people, red of passionate people, et cetera. Of course there are enormous loopholes to this, though. These are they kinds of guys who wouldn't know how to pronouce the name of their cars.

But your article sums up how I feel about it too. I like cars for the noise, the speed, the engineering effort, and because I just DO. Giant rims that'd make Snoop Dogg jealous I find comepletely tacky, and although a small sidewall can help cornering, there's a difference between what you mean and having them for performance. Often these huge wheels are chromed, which again, most of us real car guys wouldn't do.

Almost all cars can sit there with the brake and throttle in, spinning the wheels whilst stationary. This is actually called a "break stand," and any car can do one. A real burnout is when you put your foot down (or let the clutch out whilst at rpm), and the cars takes of and spins the wheels. But those guys who sit there doing are indeed only doing it for attention.

Other people have said about the benefits of a louder exhaust, but my retort is that louder doesn't mean faster at all, as you know. The Bugatti Veyron is quiet as anything, yet one of the fastest cars ever. Most guys do it because they think they're cool, and want attention. There's no denying that.

Revving the engine - again, depends what context. Before they're about to set off on a race? Makes sense. Just sitting there in traffic? Well, you can write him off as a dickhead. Holding the engine at a certain rpm and then launching off is necessary to acheive best performance.

I'd never even heard of truck nutz 'till I read this. I hang my head, and feel deeply sorry for those guys who think it's funny. Obviously they mistake patheticness for comedy.

I'd be happy to elaborate on anything you want on this subject. But just because certain guys ruin it for all of us, most of us are okay guys. Most, anyway.

The guy with a glued-on wing, big wheels, and deafening-exhaust-equipped Honda Civcs needs to be take out back and shot. The guy who has a car that doesn't attract attention is the kind of good car guy.

But like I said, it's not just cheap cars. Guys with Ferraris, Lambos, Corvettes and the like are often over-compensating fuckwits, to be polite. (You don't wanna hear my impolite version.)

This is a subject somebody could write a book about, seriously. Or a good magazine article. Or something. Read up on Brabuses - they're some really balls-out Mercedes-Benzes. Even with a good look they look just like an average Merc, but the best Brabuses are things that make Ferrari afraid. The Brabus Rocket was the fastest sedean ever for a time, but it looks quite like a standard CLS. Despite officially doing 227mph, it could easily do over 230, as logic would dictate (I'd have to explain that...). So if you meet a guy with a Brabus, he's either a guy who really likes cars, or just wants to gloat about having the most expensive Benz. Again, those goddamn loopholes.

I want to address this term "ricer" that has been brought up for a moment. It is becoming obvious to me now that this is intended as an Asian racial slur. One of you mentioned it was because of import cars which I can only assume you mean Asian import cars, like Hondas. When it was first brought up by CTagg I just thought it was a pun on racer without any racial connotation but I didn't really understand why you guys chose the word ricer. Now that I understand more about what you guys are talking about, I am uncomfortable with its usage. As someone who has a great deal of respect for the Asian culture, I think it demonstrates a level of ignorance that mirrors the same behavior that is talked about in the article. To term some of these car behaviors as "ricer" implies it is only Asians, started by Asians, or only done on Asian imports. On the contrary, the vast majority of this behavior, I have seen personally, has nothing to do with Asians. For instance, huge rims are seen in many different ethnic communities. Plus, I've seen them on Cadillac Escalades which are made by GM, an American company. Loud vehicles are usually Ford trucks, Harley motorcycles, or Mustangs, again all American made. The Truck Nutz are almost ALWAYS displayed in rural, mostly Caucasian locations, on a Dodge Ram or big Ford trucks, again American made. The majority of people sporting Truck Nutz, loud vehicles, or even revving engines at stop lights or burning rubber are often young Caucasian men, not Asians. So the term "ricer" is not only offensive but also is really passing the buck on the ignorant behavior. Someone brought up the movie Fast and Furious and neither of the two stars of that movie, Vin Diesel or Paul Walker are Asian. So my question now is, why do you guys use an Asian racial term to describe ignorant car modification behavior? Especially when such behavior is so obviously not attributed to one specific race. Again looking for a serious answer here, not trying to start racial mud slinging or anything. I just think a term like "ricer" is blatantly using ignorance to define other ignorance and thus I can't condone that as more admirable than the original ridiculous behavior itself.

I understand why you could think it's racist, but I'm pretty confident that's not what we mean. It's a term that came out of nowhere seemingly to describe, not entirely imports, but cars and their owners that are "all show and no go," and the majority of these cars are Japanese. This isn't something I really get - I'm on your side here. But we don't mean it in a racist way, it's just the term used. I know it must sound offensive to the outsider looking in, but... I don't know if there's a way I can put what I'm trying to convey here. But it's not directed at Asians, it doesn't matter what nationality at all, if a person makes their car *look* fast whilst it's not, somehow someway somebody came up with the apparentely ambiguous term "ricer." It's just a funny coicidence that it could be mistaken for being "racer" misspelled. And besides, putting silly giant rims, giant stereos, and being flashy in general whilst having a lemon in general is a trend started in the Middle East I believe, in the places like Dubai where they have too much time and money. And when in Western countries, to call a car an import is to refer to a Japanese car, but broadly speaking, yeah, it could mean any foreign car to any country, like a German one in Britain.

But I'm glad I was able to contribute something, if at all. Yes, there are large communities within our culture, all at a seeming war with each other. But the biggest enemy is each side's, and every outsider's is ignorance. Guys with super powerful Japanese cars like Supras and Skylines think guys with muscle cars are rednecks, whilst the muscle car guys look down their noses at the guys with the Japanese cars. You see how this works, I'm sure. I would dare say I'm a rarity within our culture, I'm one of those guys who has an appreciation for everything car (except certain obvious things).

And good point, there are many car guys who're in it for the glamor and attention. So many guys who own supercars lock them away and buy them just to say they have them, you know they type. But also, certain cars are like fine wines and art, they age well. A McLaren F1 in the early '90s was, say, a million US dollars, whereas now they go for was over that. But guys with any kind of cars can be attention seekers, and perhaps it is unfair to say that just "ricers" are the attention seekers.

When we call something "rice," we don't mean things like big wheels or making useless gestures like revving and burnouts, we just mean how the car looks, and generally performs. There aren't really terms to describe those big wheels.

Indeed this is a tricky subject, and like I said, there's loopholes everywhere in everybody's logic.

Dude Gavin Pitt your Gay. "And sledgehammer cocks can be nice to look at, but that's about it, as long as you want to keep your internal organs, well, internal!" you would have experience with that wouldn't you. Why in the hell would you say that unless youve enjoyed a sledge hammer before. I think you know what I'mgetting at. You need to grow a pair before you can talk.

I'm really glad I stumbled onto this article, you've provided me with something valuable. I'm no history buff, and now knowing this is, you can consider it stricken from my vocabulary. Although I have rarely used the term, whenever I've said it, I've never meant it in a racist way, but after reading your point, my view on it has changed. But it's interesting how we can call some people "hicks" and "rednecks" without it having that same kind of connotation. I'm going off subject here.

I guess we're going to have to come up with a new term for these "all show, no go" guys.

Something that's been said is that if you could bottle and sell the love of cars, it'd be the most addictive drug ever. Cars is the only things I use YouTube for, for instance. I think it's a love you have to be born with and then develop, so guys like you who were the outsiders I don't think will ever truly understand it, because hey, even we car guys don't entirely.

I need to add as a certain disclaimer that with the Fast and the Furious movies, ALL of them were written, directed, and apparentely made by guys who don't know things about cars, and I'm being quite serious. I've listened to the commenteries, watched interviews et cetera, and I think those movies were made displaying flashy cars because that's how they thought all of us performance-loving guys had cars, if you know what I'm getting at. It's like how there's ***extreme*** technical innacuracies in the movies.

When i grow up im moving to Alaska and becoming a potato farmer!

I was more just collectively referring to what some people have said. Excellent point, though.

But then again, there is that picture of that guy who did indeed try to have great sex with his car.

Some of us clearly need help.

I only wish I could come up with something clever to say now.

your mom is my tail pipe. XD

I would say it does myself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpJQwQvKniE

thank you 5th anon

Ain't nuthin but a G thang homey! - is the appropriate response to ANYTHING that involves hip hop/ crack dealing/ gang banging and the myriad of other things that human beings with healthy circuitry can't understand.

The reason men have excessively "tricked out" cars may be found in the basic evolutionary theory you proposed. It is a true statement that men, all of us, want to procreate; consequently, men individually attempt to outwardly display the best of their traits. The guy with the lifted truck, big tires, and upgraded exhaust isn't any different that yourself attempting to exemplify your wit and open-mindedness through this article. The two of you may be portraying different traits, but in the end, both he and you desire recognition.

The "truck guy" wishes to demonstrate that he is the stereotypical man women so desire. I don't have a concrete statistic, but it has been repeatedly proven that women want strong, able men that are able to care for them, protect them, etc. Such a desire is rooted in the collective unconscious of humanity that has been developed through innumerable generations of evolution. And so, back to my point, these men with the trucks are attempting to show the women that they are better than all their competitors. A "tricked out" truck requires an immense time commitment, money, and general competence. I'm not sure how familiar you are with modifying vehicles, but installing a basic "trick out" package (consisting of: ~2" lift; new, smaller wheels; new, larger tires; new exhaust system; and installation of sway bars to counter-balance the newly acquired top-heaviness) requires approximately a week of labor and a significant monetary investment (ranging upwards from about $2,000 depending on the quality of parts).

So, when you see that guy--excluding the extraneous "ricer" and redneck extremes--with his modified vehicle, just ask yourself: why do I dress nicely? Why do I work out for hours on end? Why do I portray myself as educated rather than +yp!nggg l13k th1zz? Ultimately, it's because, as an individual, you want to be perceived as superior to all the other males you are competing with. It's because society has tamed you--and more importantly the entirety of the male populace--to desire primacy. Society deems the strongest, most attractive, best dressed male as the "golden standard" that all else must strive to attain.

I respect social criticisms: fuck society, man; I'm all about Thoreau and Emerson. Yet, I find your viewpoint significantly limited. I understand that you're attempting to satirize the bastards that frustrate all of us when we're driving down the road, but, in my opinion, a more accurate critique of male behavior would require a far broader look at males. Why do we wear watches? Why do we attempt, as you so frequently do, to differentiate ourselves from the rest of "the guys?"

It's here that I would like to fill in the crucial piece of your article that I feel is missing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is a satire. Due to the infinite scale of what you're criticizing, what you wrote serves as a basic shell of a condemnation of male behaviors. Yet, there is no proposed solution. Swift's Modest Proposal didn't merely identify the problem(the landed gentry living in Ireland taxing the shit out of the English peasants) but he also brought forth a solution (remove the absentee landowners, increase the domestic economy, etc.).

Your identification of the problem is entirely accurate: men will do nearly anything to impress their female counterparts. The solution, however, is infeasible. Women, as aforementioned, want strong men. Women want a partner that can cater to their needs while simultaneously not restricting their individuality. Generally, men can fulfill the latter: there's always some Call of Duty to play or some shit to shoot with buddies; consequently, men are left attempting to solve the enigma of "strength" and "ableness." Be it through a high end car, societal critiques, or just plain muscles, men find a way to prove their worth.

The problem isn't the men with the cars, or the education system, or the gyms. The real problem is societal perception of what a man needs to be. If you so despise these chest-beating, testosterone filled men, then your life is going to be filled with hypocritical contempt. You may not attain distinction the same way, but in the end all men are going to adhere to the societal requirement--established by women--to be able and strong. To eradicate the "ricers," the muscle heads, the self-infatuated man in general, we as a population must reinvent the "ideal man." And, quite frankly, such archetypal concepts will take a myriad of generations to permute.

There's a song by The Smiths that relates. Girlfriend in a Coma. Morrissey tells his listeners "I know, I know. It's serious." He continues in the song and addresses the futility of attempting to change an issue that is entirely out of an individual's control. The problem at hand concerning societal standards is entirely detrimental to the way both men and women live; however, in the end, despite the magnitude of the issue, nothing is going to change. We must let society lead its course, and hope that our posterity will enjoy a life without such fruitless chest-pounding behavior. As of now, we must "whisper our last goodbyes," know it's serious and hope for the best.

Great question, good sir. Who are these guys trying to impress? Maybe they're all just a huge collection of gay guys trying to get on each other's dicks, no offense to any homosexual individuals there: I know it's not right to compare those douchebags to nice people. I was just kind of playing devil's advocate.

I, personally, have the basic outline of a "tricked out" vehicle that I portrayed, but it's because it's a time for bonding with my dad. Nothing like sweat, grease and the challenge of doing it all on our own to have a great time. I use it as a sort of conversation starter rather than a "look at me! I have a bigass car!" because most girls that I pick up in it need some help getting in. Ergo, instant ice breaker.

I enjoyed this article even though it was slightly(hah) condescending. But, hey, if you can't laugh at yourself then you sure as hell can't have a very good sense of humor.