I'm sure the author is a nice guy, but there's nothing I find more obnoxious that 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.
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
the first time I drove a model 3 I felt like I couldn't stop. the brakes just aren't good enough, the car weighs too much. if this is hard to understand, you're living in a different world from motorsports enthusiasts
You don't need to drive race cars to understand that a Tesla Model 3 stops faster than an 80s van with drum brakes. Sure, probably not as good as a sports car.
This guy's car may be driven hard in a circuit or mountain roads, but that ain't what this guy is doing:
> Now when I hit a loopy freeway interchange at night and my GR Corolla carves through the turn, it’s 1996 and I’m cruising in my CRX, getting pho in San Gabriel or rushing to a flyer party at Naga in Long Beach.
So doing the famous LA Stop-and-Go Freeway Circuit.
> We published our own magazines, built our own businesses, and for good and bad, promoted our own outlaw street racer image and our own beauty standard.
Or hitting the 4-way-intersection midnight drift curves.
Lets be honest, most people who drive these kinds of cars drive as many circuits as the average F-150 owner drives on western canyon dirt tracks.
Some do, sure, and if you do that, great, get the best tool for your job. But most people only daydream about these things and simply want the image as an escape from the drudgery of their lives (is the op's "midlife crisis" title snark or an actual cry for meaning?)
I'm not gonna make judgements on what hobbies to spend your money on, do whatever floats your boat. But if your hobbies are really just reving a loud engine from one strip mall red light to the next red light 1/4 mile down the road, well, my electric does that one better without being an arse to everyone around you.
This is very funny when talking about the GR Corolla specifically because it is notorious for overheating its AWD system after more than a handful of laps of a racetrack.
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.
I also have an EV, probably the same one as the grandparent...a Tesla Model Y Dual Motor Long Range. It's rated at 0-60 in 4.8s. It also has good handling, with very little body lean through curves, and a lateral G force of around .85 G.
If I switched to the same tires as the Performance version, that would increase to .95 G. That is better than many legacy sports cars.
Those who love engine noise are the modern equivalent of those who, shortly after cars became mass-market, wanted them to include buggy whips. ;-)
less than 1g is pitiful tbh. I’m no pro but have maxed out the meter on my wee sports car >1g front, left and right. it can only muster 0.5g accel so it’s worse than a tesla, am I right? having put in some serious miles on a model 3, those electrics are in another league — below
BEVs are great for non-enthusiasts whose goal is to be transported, but in their current incarnation they are _abysmal_ for people whose goal is _to drive_.
And people who brag about the performance specs of a car whose main selling point is that it requires no skill or attention to drive are missing the point entirely.
100%. And to be clear I have no problem with BEVs or boring cars (there is some overlap). I own an extremely boring car, a CR-V hybrid, and it's a fantastic family hauler.
Thinking about it now, I suppose I didn't feel any need for my family hauler to have a hot 0-60 time. It will apparently do mid eighties on the skidpad, which really underlines how useless that metric is for describing real world cornering performance---it's unapologetically a boat.
Who cares? Static skidpad performance has very little to do with how engaging a car is to drive, and engagement is what somebody buying a GRC (or a GR86, or a Miata, etc.) is looking for.
I mean, engagement aside, you are really just showing your ignorance here if you think skid pad max G is a useful metric to capture real world cornering performance except in extremely broad strokes.
If you want an objective measurement that will usefully speak to how these cars feel to drive vs. each other, check out how much they weigh!
> 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.
it's not just about straight line performance. lots of subie fans won't trade their STI for the current gen WRX, even though the engine is way better, because the driving dynamics are just not as good.
that said, it's possible to have a fun ICE car and not build it in a way that your neighbors will hate you.
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 added a MIK rear rack with pannier rails. I bought a seat post collar with screw holes in order to attach it, only to realize the bike doesn't have a seat post collar! And the collar was 1/4 inch too wide for the seat post. I wedged some green tire protection strips in there and it works great. I biked home two full panniers and a watermelon in a basket from a farmer's market. Bad idea in retrospect as the whole bike wobbled from being back-heavy. And the kickstand cannot handle even the slightest amount of weight. I might invest in front pannier rails. So I guess I'm going in the touring bike direction!
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.
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 promise you, there are many many many people who modify their cars and do not act like assholes. The thing is, you probably don't notice them because they aren't focused on getting attention.
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.
I used to drive a GTI, (it was stolen from me…) - you can absolutely fling it into a corner and come out unscathed. I never put it on a track and I don’t think it would do great without adjustment but on road legal speeds there no reason it should need the driver to be “tender”
Counterpoint: I know my car can brake and turn much harder than I do (it's not a sports car by any mean, but that's beyond the point).
I'd rather not change my tires and brake pads all the time though, and keep some margin for whatever unexpected stuff is hiding behind the corner. Also I don't like having to stop because everyone in the car got motion sickness.
Every car can brake, turn and accelerate much harder than any of us will even think to do especially turning and braking. But you pinpointed why we must not attempt to reach for the limit, not for us but for the others. And anyway a normal car won't lay long if driven like a racing car. Every single component is not designed for that.
I have a sports car and a Model Y. Whenever I go on a twisty mountain road, without fail, if I will encounter what you said. It does not matter which of the two cars I drive! What's worse is that this happens even in roads where the speed limit is 35 mph and those people may drive 25 mph or even 15 mph! (See the road passing through Cambria in California. It's an epic drivers' road, and yet...)
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.
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.
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.
Counter point - driving down the beach in a convertible with good tunes blasting and the sea breeze in your hair is fun.
Like yeah it sucks for everyone listening, but if every other car is blasting tunes it isn't out of place. Some beach drives are known for this, right place at the right time.
When I visited Floria Keys I sure as shit rented a convertible and played bass thumping EDM as I drove over the ocean. Hell I think I may have even been wearing Ray-Bans.
Don't do that shit in a family neighborhood at 4am, but I never objected to people peeling out of the Microsoft parking garage in their lolwtf over priced garage princess sports cars. Bailing at 4pm with your coworkers to go hit up the bar is a perfect time to let loose.
Granted I don't have hair anymore but I've never driven in a convertible and felt a "breeze". Anything past 30 mph is...exactly what it is, like sticking your head out the window while driving.
> The entire concept of American masculinity is about inflicting yourself on as many other people as you can.
Haha, what?
You're describing a mindset and behavior that is indeed more prevalent than it should be or used to be, but it's got nothing to do with the "concept of American masculinity"
Maybe I'm just oversensitized today, but this is the third thread I've seen in the past hour where someone brings up gender in a conversation for no good reason. As if there aren't women who are inconsiderate assholes, nor men who are kind and compassionate.
Of course there are, but women tend to be inconsiderate assholes in different ways. While a population of 300 million means you could probably find plenty of counterexamples, obnoxiously loud cars and motorcycles are overwhelmingly driven by men. This isn't because men are worse than women, it's because our current culture directs antisocial men to loud vehicles, and antisocial women to other things.
Yea, it's not just masculinity, although I'm sure if you tallied up the car modders, one gender is going to be disproportionately represented.
The USA population in general has swung really, REALLY far into the "I'm going to grief others, and you can't tell me what to do!" attitude. It's much worse now than probably any time in my life. So many people out there just wake up every day looking for ways to inflict themselves on the public, act loud, aggressive and tough, and in general be "antisocial and proud of it."
> The more insufferable you are, the more "manly" you are.
That's just the usual compensation. Real heavy hitters are actually eerily quiet. They don't have anything to prove. It's the insecure who constantly engage in overt displays.
>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.
By that metric obnoxious whiny complainers who want the government to force their preferences on all of society are far more manly than someone rolling coal or whatever.
Anecdotally, this seems to be going out of style, I have not seen anyone legitimately roll coal in several years. Could just be my area, of course, but we did have some coal rollers in the past.
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".
In addition to these reasons, there is the economic side. They're spending money on frivolous but attainable luxury items because the traditional economic path of a house and family seems impossibly out of reach.
You can save for 6 months to buy a car mod for 1500, but when local median house price is $1,000,000 they may feel like it's pointless to even attempt being a home owner.
Except people have been doing obnoxious shit to feel better about themselves since forever ago. Look two hundred years back and you will see European men duelling each other over the most random stuffs. If anything, I'd say I am seeing less modded cars and hearing less bikes with more decibels than jet engines than I did 20 years ago.
I feel like you just grasping to any social phenomenon to try to insert your own agenda.
Dueling is a very different phenomenon. Duels were typically done away from urban centers and involved only the participants. They were not done to annoy other random people.
I'm no expert, but you could do a whole deep dive on the sociology behind dueling to get a better sense of what socioeconomic conditions led to it.
Just saying "the stegosaurus is like a peanut butter cookie" to establish an analogy doesn't immediately confer wisdom. An analogy has to actually be between things that have meaningful similarity. If we were, say, talking about street racing for pink slips, then maybe the dueling analogy would be more useful.
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.
Around here it's a part of gang "culture". The point, IMO, is to remind citizens that the police is not doing anything and gangbangers are free to do whatever they want. As any blatantly illegal behavior it benefits criminals via intimidation and suppression of reports of their activity. Also "swangas".
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 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.
Probably more likely to get harassed in the country for it because the cops gotta fish harder for their extortion money/pay.
Ive been pulled over multiple times with brand new stock exhaust on a stock vehicle cruising at 55 because the body looked old and rusted and the cops were looking for any plausable excuse. With a real excuse they could throw tickets at you when they get frusterated with lack of other possible charges.
>Probably more likely to get harassed in the country for it because the cops gotta fish harder for their extortion money/pay.
Yes and no. Rich places that can trivially afford to over-staff their PD's compared to the amount of "real crime" to go around are some of the worst when it comes to baseless fishing.
When was the last time you saw a cop actually stop a crime? Not respond to one, but prevent a crime? Even their responses to "real crime" are half-hearted in almost every state I've lived in. Many act like I'm imposing on them.
I had a guitar stolen out of my car in the late 90's. It was hot pink, and I was pretty sure that the thief would try to pawn it. So when I spoke with the cop who showed up, I mentioned about checking pawn shops etc. He said "Sounds like a good idea. If you find anything, let us know..."
I’m having trouble imagining the privacy concern. If someone’s vehicle is topping 90db then it’s hard to argue what they really want is privacy, and even the most invasive monitoring method I can think of (widespread mics) could be nerfed by requiring hardware that only responds at db threshholds well above conversation.
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.
Sure, but as long as they're allowed to paintball you and sick draconian enforcement on you for whatever trivial things you do they deem to be slights against society.
Like FFS, it's just fucking noise. It's a small minority of people. Can we just ignore them? There's so much bigger problems. Most people grow out of it after one car like that.
I live just uphill of a state highway junction so I get to hear everything accelerating leaving that intersection.
It's really not bad. You don't even notice it after awhile unless it's something that sounds funny like a semi trailer with an out of round tire or like a cluster of motorcyles or a mazda rotary or a nat-gas powered heavy truck.
So are serial killers. A small minority of people can affect the lives and health of a lot more. A handful of people roaring through a neighborhood at night like this can mean nobody ever gets a proper night's sleep.
If someone plays with a laser in your eye, being told "it's just light, it's one guy, can you just ignore him, he'll grow out of it", won't be a consolation. You'll want him stopped.
> Most people grow out of it after one car like that.
If we could ignore them, this thread would not exist.
and I support extra legal measures against these people. They do it for the attention and they deserve the attention they will have coming to them.
In Seattle they had a guy in Belltown being a nuisance with a loud charger at all hours of the night in an urban setting. They knew who he was and he lived with his mom (lol). I never understood why the community didn’t deal with it when the police would not. Lack of enforcement is what leads to vigilantism.
>I never understood why the community didn’t deal with it when the police would not.
Because if you are the one who actually has to do the violence rather than outsourcing it to the state it becomes clear this isn't a subject worth that violence.
Put yourself in the shoes of the guy who has to do the pistol whipping. Unless you've got a badge and a state paycheck and can just blindly live with your actions as "it's muh job" and know that just about everyone will agree it's just not worth it.
Hence why only the state ever applies violence over such subjects.
I think it’s cameras. I used to know people who took these matters into their own hands with baseball bats to the offending vehicle at 3 in the morning. But that was many years ago where if there were any witnesses they’d be glad some blue collar kind of guy got fed up with the noise making nuisance of a car.
When you say enforcement isn't worth it, you end up letting the most inconsiderate people with some of the worst decision making set the tone for society.
It's also pretty likely that the state violence will be a threat rather than a literal pistol whipping. Harder for the vigilante to make that work.
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.
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.
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.
yeah, majority of people just want to have something that is capable of doing cool stuff, but can't really commit to actually doing it. it's like how so many buy and tune WRXs, but don't actually take it to gravel roads.
> 20-inch wheels aren't capable of cool stuff. It's all peacocking.
You should let Porsche and Chevy know. They must have missed the memo and didn't realize all the lap records they set with the GT3 RS and ZR1 could be even faster with some proper wheels ;)
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.
Well there's right ways to do them, where you replace all the weak components with properly strengthened components, and geometry fixing components, and then there's the wrong way to do them, which is what 99% of people do, where they just do a cheap lift, without upgrading the other components, and eventually it fails.
Probably the primary reason why vehicles like Jeeps get a bad reputation - they're incredibly commonly modded, and incredibly horribly/improperly modded, and the vehicle gets the blame when the mods fail, rather than the horrible things the owner did to them.
Average quality and reliability ratings even on new, unmodified Jeeps are abysmal. I understand why some consumers like them for style and off-road capability but overall it's a trash brand.
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 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.
I hate that less than the upper middle class types that slow their $50k Highlander/Pilot/Range Rover a crawl to drive over them.
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. :)
The author here didn’t even recount doing any work on his car or demonstrate any real knowledge of basic mechanics. Just talks about the high-end shops that did the work.
He did a great job painting himself as completely self-absorbed and lacking in personality that he’s making up with consooming. Down to the whining and performative identitarian victimization. Like if you just enjoy cars and love your Vietnamese-American hyphen culture awesome do that. But this whole article reeks of LOOK AT ME.
I mean mods are always about tradeoffs. You're generally not smarter than the team of engineers that designed it, but you probably do have different goals, that's where the opportunity to improve an aspect of the car comes in.
I think it should be done with a clear understanding of what you're giving up, but some people don't want to put practicality first and that's okay.
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.
the reason "shakes fist at cloud" is something to laugh at is because clouds aren't sentient. they aren't blocking out the sun to annoy you, they're just clouds. it's a natural phenomena, not something you can do anything about.
people who modify their cars to intentionally disturb the people around them are (theoretically) sentient. the guy in this article is not an uncontrollable natural phenomenon, he's just a guy who's chosen to make loud noises his hobby. shaking your fist at him is perfectly reasonable.
> 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.
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).
I don't think there's anything wrong with doing purely cosmetic modifications if those modifications don't also make the car worse. The challenge is many folks in the community do cosmetic modifications that actually reduce performance.
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.
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.
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.
Driving isn't so bad, the bad part is being outside a car while these things buzz by. Like there are restaurants with outdoor patios I entirely avoid because I want to hear others at the table.
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.
I mean, I object to cars with unreasonable acceleration on the roads.
I'm looking at you, Tesla Plaid; a ten second car was a plot point in The Fast and the Furious, so this feels like yet another "we have created the Torment Nexus".
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.
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.
someone stole the catalytic converter from my Honda CRV a few years ago by basically cutting off the entire exhaust system. It made for a very loud drive until we got it fixed hah.
It's shocking how loud even small ICE engines are. I drove a Geo Metro back in the 90s, with it's tiny little 1.0L motor (with 45 and 1/2 angry little horses-- and the half horse is the angriest of them all) and between the exhaust resonator and muffler rusting out I got to hear how loud a little motor is. Shockingly loud.
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
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.
Oh yes. I used to have a VW van (a T4) which had had a V6 transplant and an aftermarket turbo retrofitted (not by me - I am a quite capable mechanic, but not THAT capable.)
It was still a VW van, but it gave a few unsuspecting BMW drivers a surprise. Some 370bhp tends to get others' attention when unleashed.
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.
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.
Many modern cars do this due to how quiet ICE are now. Oftentimes the fake interior noise is awful. I pull the modules that inject the fake noise, it makes the interior much quieter. YMMV.
I find the modded import scene was much bigger around 15 to 20 years ago. About 5 years ago it was loud Mustangs and Camaros. Now, down here in the deep south, pickup trucks are by far the most obnoxious. (source: I walk around my city everyday)
I also dislike loud cars, but I've come to accept that the motivation of loud car owners is probably to gain kudos from other loud car lovers, rather than to inflict pain on us normies. One time I remember being on my bicycle and a kid car revved past me and another cyclist. In my head I though "what an asshole" but the cyclist next to me shouted "Sick!!!" I'm not really defending the loud noise, but I think it's useful to shift perspective a bit and understand it is probably not an act of intentional violence (though it may be unintentional violence).
I don’t see how your “shift” makes it any better. Did you really think people did exhaust mods purely to torment everyone around them? The noise and the its effect on listeners is the entire point. The fact that it’s primarily to gain kudos from “other loud car lovers” and especially attention from vapid women doesn’t alter the fact that they know and more likely relish if not most charitably are completely indifferent to the effect on everyone else. Which is fundamentally bad character when you’re revving these around populated areas.
After all any “loud car lover” is also either annoyed when their sleep is interrupted or they can’t hear themselves think for hours on end, or they have the IQ of a box of rocks. So you can choose either complete self-centeredness and hypocrisy at that (likely) or being borderline too dumb to operate a vehicle.
Have you considered people can enjoy different things than you? I personally enjoy a nice exhaust tone and I like subwoofers as well. And I don't like them just because they might piss off somebody like yourself, it's for my own enjoyment. Not all exhausts and subwoofers are created equal. Most modern cars with 'premium' sound systems like Bose, JBL, etc. have subwoofers, but they're usually small and don't require a lot of power. The system they installed in this car might have been the OEM premium sound package as well - the one Toyota offers is JBL and comes with a subwoofer. Do you get mad when it's OEM or just DIY? The GR Corolla has a 'loud' exhaust from the factory as well. Loud enough that you'd probably rage at it judging by this comment.
People buy aftermarket exhausts for a variety of reasons. They can produce a different tone, cut down on exhaust 'drone' (which the GR Corolla is notorious for with it's factory exhaust), offer alternative styling, provide weight savings, and reduce backpressure/improve flow. It's not just about volume. Certainly you could be an asshole who buys an exhaust just because it's loud, but that's not why the majority are doing it, it's for their own enjoyment and usually provides a performance improvement. If they really wanted to achieve max volume they could just do an open dump exhaust or a hood exit, it would be cheaper than buying a Borla and significantly louder.
Your nuanced hobby and aesthetics is reduced to “stupid loudness” in people’s minds because the primary interaction other people have with it is “I am being subjected to stupid loudness”, yes.
I like sparring. If I went around punching random people in the face I'd get arrested. If you want to drive a loud car, tha's fine; just do it in a way that doesn't bother other people. Imagine how much better the world would be if everyone put in even the slightest bit of effort to be kind and compassionate to each other.
There is a saying "The smallest dog barks the loudest". Those that make the most noise to be seen are the most insecure in their position in the world.
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.
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
Yeah, I'm waiting to sell it for an EV minivan to come out. The Mercedes VLE looks interesting. I was hopeful for the VW Bus, but it's just underwhelming.
the VLE looks great but the pricepoint basically limits it to livery use in cosmopolitan cities. I'm thinking they'll probably sell 1000s of units over the whole run in north america
It feels odd that extremely few in Anglosphere is pointing that out. Tesla chassis design and handling tuning is apparently atrocious enough that many total amateur dads on car review sites have to mention it, in the Japanese sphere.
what about between the oil crisis and federal regulations in 88'? not challenging 90s tuning culture in California being pioneered by Asian Americans, just thinking what was the history of imported cars in America - selling European brands to the wealthy etc
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 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
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.
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.
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 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 guess what I don't get is the part where you broadcast that it's a midlife crisis
A number of my friends have said this as a joke (the kind of joke someone finds funny when they have a stable job, stable marriage, and a couple of kids, I guess)
A few others have definitely not been joking, and hey, if the red sportscar and chasing women half your age lets you momentarily forget about how much you hate your job, your mortgage, and your ex-wife... I can't really find fault with that?
Right or wrong, there are a lot of people who treat guys differently based on what they drive. In a corporate office there is social pressure to drive something that fits your role. Can you ignore that pressure? Of course. Do what you want and own it. But that pressure is still there.
When you have a 2-seat sports car you can't be the one who drives when the team goes out to lunch. If your car looks more expensive than your coworkers' cars, they start to gossip about how you can afford it.
Declaring it a midlife crisis is an attempt to get ahead of that. They're saying that they didn't buy it to avoid driving the team to lunch. They're saying that it's a rare treat, not something they could easily afford. They're saying that this car isn't their personality, it's something they wanted to enjoy.
Is any of this necessary? No. But it might cut down on rumors, and that put their mind at ease.
> 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.
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 ;-)
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.
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.
We are not all so lucky. I live one door down from an avenue that does sometimes get these kinds of vehicles and it 100% disturbs me in my home.
I understand that living in a society means that sometimes people will do things that inconvenience me. I am much more understanding of that when the inconvenience provides some clear benefit to the other person in return.
But in this case, annoying strangers is the point. When you're in the car, you aren't hearing the 100+dB exhaust. It's not a necessary path to optimizing the car's performance. It's just being an asshole to demonstrate to the world that they are powerless to stop you from being an asshole.
I live in an area with mostly a grid road pattern. It's very quiet, mostly the sounds of nature. But about a mile away from my house there's a very nice road with great curves and few intersections. Every weekend the guys with the exhausts come out and it sounds like I'm at a racetrack. They certainly don't care that there are hundreds of people nearby that have to listen to this.
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
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
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 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.
Except a car with a loud exhaust you'll hear for a max 10 seconds as it drives past you/ your house is not the same as having a house that is stationary, with a loudspeaker, that the neighbours will hear all the time.
But a lot of car "hacking" is like installing RGB fans back to back so they whine louder. Which is totally a made up strawman argument that nobody is making, but also not hacking.
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 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.
Just had to look this up, impressive specs for a Subaru. They've had some pretty lackluster EVs in the past (along with Toyota), but this one actually seems like a good combination of range and performance (375hp equivalent and 281 miles of range). Doesn't have super fast charging, which isn't a dealbreaker at the pricepoint.
I've got a Volvo C40 currently which is 400hp and likewise impressively fast, but the range is absolute trash (230mi claimed, usually more like 200mi). Otherwise the vehicle is nearly perfect.
I love the Trailseeker for being the anti-Tesla car. I rented a Tesla a while back and have driven friends cars: I hate everything about their UX. It's like people who never drove a car tried to invent a car from how they imagine it should work. Horrible. I won't go into detail about all the way's it's a superior design, I'll just say that it has normal door handles and that's gist of the design philosophy.
The new eTNGA platform has been bumped up to 150 kW and while it's not crazy Hyundai speed, but it's been fine on a road trip. The charging curve makes great use of that 150kw.
The only sort of gripe many have with Subaru/Toyota is their completely whiffing the software, particularly the route planner. The redeeming factor is that charging infra is becoming so common that you don't need a crazy software system to avoid running out of battery. There's a charger pretty much every 50 miles or less everywhere you'd want to go.
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.
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.
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.
The normal corolla does not have a turbo at all. Besides the turbo, the GR Corolla has a completely different engine, different transmission, all wheel drive, limited slip transaxle and differential, and completely different suspension.
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:
---
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.
---
and this one:
---
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's meant for spirited driving. If it wasn't so expensive it'd be an amazing car for tooling around on gravel roads with some skidplates. Electric won't take you out to the boonies, you can't bring more juice with you and ultimately an electric package that will consistently produce 300hp while weighing 3200lbs does not exist. As far as Land Cruisers's I feel that the externalities of those and other neo-vintage boxes on 33" tires are greater than anything else on the road. Horrible mileage, makes everything less safe, less agility, less visibility, all to cosplay.
It's too bad that Toyota and Honda don't have a WRX analogue sitting below their STI analogue, but I guess the demand for that kind of car isn't what it used to be.
I'd settle for the Civic SI having a bit more power on tap. Budgetizing the GRC might be a bit more problematic.
If they could shoehorn the Prius drivetrain into a Corolla hatchback (not sure of packaging, a Corolla hybrid sedan already loses 2 gallons of gas vs the normal car, maybe with solid-state batteries), that could be a great, if sonically unpleasant, middle ground. The hybrid Civics already give the Si a run for the money (though the 6 speed and LSD are great). I could see Honda being able to punch the engine out to 2.3 (they shrank the bore on the hybrid to 81mm for efficiency) and with updated battery tech eek out 230hp. Add an LSD, type R control arms/spindles/sway bars and that'd be an incredible 40mpg combined daily though dangerously close to $40k.
Have you driven a Land Cruiser? They’re substantial better than the average pickup truck on most of the issues you listed. For example, the current F-150 crew cab which is the most popular vehicle in the US is 3 ft longer and has a taller hood. So it’s a little weird to single out a niche SUV as the worst thing on the road. Modern Land Cruisers handle pretty well, while the old ones with live front axle are harder to drive but also smaller. Everyone I know with that type of car uses it to go see cool stuff in the mountains, although I’m sure cosplayers exist.
> 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?
The flaws are the point. Keeping within power band while rowing the gears while the engine is yelling is entire point of manual ICE sports car. Or a motorcycle for that matter
Also GR Corolla is for zooming around the race track, not hitting 0-60 times, and it has roots in GR Yaris which is homologation special WRC car.
>I get traditional car culture,
I don't think you do
> but electrics embody the "money talks, wealth whispers" truism.
And I don't think it does. Raw performance (at least the straight line one) in EV is after all cheaper.
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.
These threads pull the Tesla Camry Corolla civic and Prius drivers out of the shadows like clockwork. A miserable bunch that are jelly they don’t have the time or budget to customize their car to their liking. It’s a crabs in a bucket mentality -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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
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".
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.
Some people also talk about how their slushbox or DCT is faster than manual, so no point in manual. Ok, if all you care about is speed, there's electric. If you subscribe to whatever reason electric is worse than ICE, fine, auto is still slower than AMT or sequential. So what's the point of auto? Why does an automatic Supra even exist? If you want fun then it's manual.
Anyway, guy picked the right car, just ruined it with the exhaust mod.
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.
A lift would be rad, but I think we'd have to completely redo the garage doors to get enough vertical clearance for it. In a couple years I think we're planning to redo the garage so that it's more effective as a workshop, maybe we can include a lift as part of that.
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.
the stock GRC exhaust is intolerable already; every time I pull into the apt complex where everyone drives an EV, I feel like we're the neighborhood hood rats
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.
I think its a pretty amazing engineering feat to combine Toyota reliability + 1.6L of engine + the weight of a hatchback + 300hp. Sure, not the best exhaust note, but probably such a fun little monster to drive.
I'd say the reliability statement is still a bit early (GRC has been out four years, GR Yaris with same engine has been out about 5-6). But so far it does seem fairly reliable at least up until someone decides to push the power limits for various components.
It's insanely fun. I previously had a BRZ which was also a lot of fun. This is a whole new beast. Especially in not ideal conditions (wet road in the fog on a mountain and presumably in snow or dirt).
342 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 72.1 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLJETZyfb7I
Ah yes, the "everybody in a 3 mile radius must know how much I spent on my exhaust"-mobile
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.
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
> Now when I hit a loopy freeway interchange at night and my GR Corolla carves through the turn, it’s 1996 and I’m cruising in my CRX, getting pho in San Gabriel or rushing to a flyer party at Naga in Long Beach.
So doing the famous LA Stop-and-Go Freeway Circuit.
> We published our own magazines, built our own businesses, and for good and bad, promoted our own outlaw street racer image and our own beauty standard.
Or hitting the 4-way-intersection midnight drift curves.
Lets be honest, most people who drive these kinds of cars drive as many circuits as the average F-150 owner drives on western canyon dirt tracks.
Some do, sure, and if you do that, great, get the best tool for your job. But most people only daydream about these things and simply want the image as an escape from the drudgery of their lives (is the op's "midlife crisis" title snark or an actual cry for meaning?)
I'm not gonna make judgements on what hobbies to spend your money on, do whatever floats your boat. But if your hobbies are really just reving a loud engine from one strip mall red light to the next red light 1/4 mile down the road, well, my electric does that one better without being an arse to everyone around you.
If I switched to the same tires as the Performance version, that would increase to .95 G. That is better than many legacy sports cars.
Those who love engine noise are the modern equivalent of those who, shortly after cars became mass-market, wanted them to include buggy whips. ;-)
And people who brag about the performance specs of a car whose main selling point is that it requires no skill or attention to drive are missing the point entirely.
Thinking about it now, I suppose I didn't feel any need for my family hauler to have a hot 0-60 time. It will apparently do mid eighties on the skidpad, which really underlines how useless that metric is for describing real world cornering performance---it's unapologetically a boat.
As they say, there's no accounting for taste...
If you want an objective measurement that will usefully speak to how these cars feel to drive vs. each other, check out how much they weigh!
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.
that said, it's possible to have a fun ICE car and not build it in a way that your neighbors will hate you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_...
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 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.
All to transport one person by themselves from home to office and back.
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.
I'd rather not change my tires and brake pads all the time though, and keep some margin for whatever unexpected stuff is hiding behind the corner. Also I don't like having to stop because everyone in the car got motion sickness.
The usual computer analogy /s You don't run a LLM on a Core Duo 2, but of course https://yeokhengmeng.com/2025/04/llama2-llm-on-dos/
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.
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.
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.
Like yeah it sucks for everyone listening, but if every other car is blasting tunes it isn't out of place. Some beach drives are known for this, right place at the right time.
When I visited Floria Keys I sure as shit rented a convertible and played bass thumping EDM as I drove over the ocean. Hell I think I may have even been wearing Ray-Bans.
Don't do that shit in a family neighborhood at 4am, but I never objected to people peeling out of the Microsoft parking garage in their lolwtf over priced garage princess sports cars. Bailing at 4pm with your coworkers to go hit up the bar is a perfect time to let loose.
The annoying thing now is the guys with the full dresser bikes or Polaris Slingshots that have 2500W stereos installed.
You can be all the way down by the water and hear their music clear as day, as they are idling through traffic on the A1A
Haha, what?
You're describing a mindset and behavior that is indeed more prevalent than it should be or used to be, but it's got nothing to do with the "concept of American masculinity"
The USA population in general has swung really, REALLY far into the "I'm going to grief others, and you can't tell me what to do!" attitude. It's much worse now than probably any time in my life. So many people out there just wake up every day looking for ways to inflict themselves on the public, act loud, aggressive and tough, and in general be "antisocial and proud of it."
That's just the usual compensation. Real heavy hitters are actually eerily quiet. They don't have anything to prove. It's the insecure who constantly engage in overt displays.
By that metric obnoxious whiny complainers who want the government to force their preferences on all of society are far more manly than someone rolling coal or whatever.
Edit: Maybe that was your point.
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".
You can save for 6 months to buy a car mod for 1500, but when local median house price is $1,000,000 they may feel like it's pointless to even attempt being a home owner.
I feel like you just grasping to any social phenomenon to try to insert your own agenda.
I'm no expert, but you could do a whole deep dive on the sociology behind dueling to get a better sense of what socioeconomic conditions led to it.
Just saying "the stegosaurus is like a peanut butter cookie" to establish an analogy doesn't immediately confer wisdom. An analogy has to actually be between things that have meaningful similarity. If we were, say, talking about street racing for pink slips, then maybe the dueling analogy would be more useful.
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.
> Super-bright headlights/aux lights improperly mounted or operated, blinding you at night.
> Stereos you can almost feel before you hear them.
So no different than 30 years ago.
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.
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.
Ive been pulled over multiple times with brand new stock exhaust on a stock vehicle cruising at 55 because the body looked old and rusted and the cops were looking for any plausable excuse. With a real excuse they could throw tickets at you when they get frusterated with lack of other possible charges.
Yes and no. Rich places that can trivially afford to over-staff their PD's compared to the amount of "real crime" to go around are some of the worst when it comes to baseless fishing.
I had a guitar stolen out of my car in the late 90's. It was hot pink, and I was pretty sure that the thief would try to pawn it. So when I spoke with the cop who showed up, I mentioned about checking pawn shops etc. He said "Sounds like a good idea. If you find anything, let us know..."
Completely useless choads...
Why would you think that was the case?
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.
Like FFS, it's just fucking noise. It's a small minority of people. Can we just ignore them? There's so much bigger problems. Most people grow out of it after one car like that.
Okay, let me blast 110dB into your ears and you tell me how the fuck you like it.
I don't think you'd like it if people played deafeningly loud noises outside your bedroom window at all hours of the night every night forever.
It's really not bad. You don't even notice it after awhile unless it's something that sounds funny like a semi trailer with an out of round tire or like a cluster of motorcyles or a mazda rotary or a nat-gas powered heavy truck.
So are serial killers. A small minority of people can affect the lives and health of a lot more. A handful of people roaring through a neighborhood at night like this can mean nobody ever gets a proper night's sleep.
If someone plays with a laser in your eye, being told "it's just light, it's one guy, can you just ignore him, he'll grow out of it", won't be a consolation. You'll want him stopped.
> Most people grow out of it after one car like that.
Someone else grows into it.
and I support extra legal measures against these people. They do it for the attention and they deserve the attention they will have coming to them.
In Seattle they had a guy in Belltown being a nuisance with a loud charger at all hours of the night in an urban setting. They knew who he was and he lived with his mom (lol). I never understood why the community didn’t deal with it when the police would not. Lack of enforcement is what leads to vigilantism.
Because if you are the one who actually has to do the violence rather than outsourcing it to the state it becomes clear this isn't a subject worth that violence.
Put yourself in the shoes of the guy who has to do the pistol whipping. Unless you've got a badge and a state paycheck and can just blindly live with your actions as "it's muh job" and know that just about everyone will agree it's just not worth it.
Hence why only the state ever applies violence over such subjects.
It's also pretty likely that the state violence will be a threat rather than a literal pistol whipping. Harder for the vigilante to make that work.
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.
You should let Porsche and Chevy know. They must have missed the memo and didn't realize all the lap records they set with the GT3 RS and ZR1 could be even faster with some proper wheels ;)
For good reason, they're not built for it. A stock WRX is going to be destroyed after a few outings on "real" terrain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT-o8vuhRok
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.
Lifts are bad for driveshafts, suspension, tires, etc
Probably the primary reason why vehicles like Jeeps get a bad reputation - they're incredibly commonly modded, and incredibly horribly/improperly modded, and the vehicle gets the blame when the mods fail, rather than the horrible things the owner did to them.
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.
Personally I'll take a sedan or wagon with ample ground clearance any day: https://images.classic.com/vehicles/559a40ae72662e1ac71d2286...
I hate that less than the upper middle class types that slow their $50k Highlander/Pilot/Range Rover a crawl to drive over them.
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. :)
He did a great job painting himself as completely self-absorbed and lacking in personality that he’s making up with consooming. Down to the whining and performative identitarian victimization. Like if you just enjoy cars and love your Vietnamese-American hyphen culture awesome do that. But this whole article reeks of LOOK AT ME.
I think it should be done with a clear understanding of what you're giving up, but some people don't want to put practicality first and that's okay.
Your mileage may vary and that's all good
the reason "shakes fist at cloud" is something to laugh at is because clouds aren't sentient. they aren't blocking out the sun to annoy you, they're just clouds. it's a natural phenomena, not something you can do anything about.
people who modify their cars to intentionally disturb the people around them are (theoretically) sentient. the guy in this article is not an uncontrollable natural phenomenon, he's just a guy who's chosen to make loud noises his hobby. shaking your fist at him is perfectly reasonable.
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.
Now, would I do that to a Camry? No freakin way.
And some people are absolute assholes - https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/belltown-he...
I'm looking at you, Tesla Plaid; a ten second car was a plot point in The Fast and the Furious, so this feels like yet another "we have created the Torment Nexus".
I just have to give my head a shake. It makes zero sense to me.
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 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
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.
It was still a VW van, but it gave a few unsuspecting BMW drivers a surprise. Some 370bhp tends to get others' attention when unleashed.
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.
Flies in the face of all the talk about consent. I did not consent to this...
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.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a63141971/dodge-charger-da...
After all any “loud car lover” is also either annoyed when their sleep is interrupted or they can’t hear themselves think for hours on end, or they have the IQ of a box of rocks. So you can choose either complete self-centeredness and hypocrisy at that (likely) or being borderline too dumb to operate a vehicle.
People buy aftermarket exhausts for a variety of reasons. They can produce a different tone, cut down on exhaust 'drone' (which the GR Corolla is notorious for with it's factory exhaust), offer alternative styling, provide weight savings, and reduce backpressure/improve flow. It's not just about volume. Certainly you could be an asshole who buys an exhaust just because it's loud, but that's not why the majority are doing it, it's for their own enjoyment and usually provides a performance improvement. If they really wanted to achieve max volume they could just do an open dump exhaust or a hood exit, it would be cheaper than buying a Borla and significantly louder.
Things like peace and quiet? Assholes with loud exhausts have made it abundantly clear that our tastes differ, yes.
what about between the oil crisis and federal regulations in 88'? not challenging 90s tuning culture in California being pioneered by Asian Americans, just thinking what was the history of imported cars in America - selling European brands to the wealthy etc
Men in midlife crisis: supercharger that no-one can see. You're still immature but hiding it, which is the adult thing to do.
(Yeah I'm saving up for a supercharger)
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.
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.
It isn’t bad, I would just prefer a WRX/STi at that point.
It's also really completely different from a standard Corolla.
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.
A number of my friends have said this as a joke (the kind of joke someone finds funny when they have a stable job, stable marriage, and a couple of kids, I guess)
A few others have definitely not been joking, and hey, if the red sportscar and chasing women half your age lets you momentarily forget about how much you hate your job, your mortgage, and your ex-wife... I can't really find fault with that?
When you have a 2-seat sports car you can't be the one who drives when the team goes out to lunch. If your car looks more expensive than your coworkers' cars, they start to gossip about how you can afford it.
Declaring it a midlife crisis is an attempt to get ahead of that. They're saying that they didn't buy it to avoid driving the team to lunch. They're saying that it's a rare treat, not something they could easily afford. They're saying that this car isn't their personality, it's something they wanted to enjoy.
Is any of this necessary? No. But it might cut down on rumors, and that put their mind at ease.
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.
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 ;-)
Hey, you just figured out the entire point of buying a mid-life crisis car!
You know what is? The doings of obnoxious adtech people.
We are not all so lucky. I live one door down from an avenue that does sometimes get these kinds of vehicles and it 100% disturbs me in my home.
I understand that living in a society means that sometimes people will do things that inconvenience me. I am much more understanding of that when the inconvenience provides some clear benefit to the other person in return.
But in this case, annoying strangers is the point. When you're in the car, you aren't hearing the 100+dB exhaust. It's not a necessary path to optimizing the car's performance. It's just being an asshole to demonstrate to the world that they are powerless to stop you from being an asshole.
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.
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.
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.
I've got a Volvo C40 currently which is 400hp and likewise impressively fast, but the range is absolute trash (230mi claimed, usually more like 200mi). Otherwise the vehicle is nearly perfect.
The new eTNGA platform has been bumped up to 150 kW and while it's not crazy Hyundai speed, but it's been fine on a road trip. The charging curve makes great use of that 150kw.
The only sort of gripe many have with Subaru/Toyota is their completely whiffing the software, particularly the route planner. The redeeming factor is that charging infra is becoming so common that you don't need a crazy software system to avoid running out of battery. There's a charger pretty much every 50 miles or less everywhere you'd want to go.
That is an SUV, not a wagon.
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.
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.
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.
Corolla.
And I suspect Toyota put a little more effort than that into the GR.
Fish, Prawn, Crab is an indie Asian American movie in development.
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?
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.
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/
---
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.
---
and this one:
---
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's too bad that Toyota and Honda don't have a WRX analogue sitting below their STI analogue, but I guess the demand for that kind of car isn't what it used to be.
I'd settle for the Civic SI having a bit more power on tap. Budgetizing the GRC might be a bit more problematic.
The flaws are the point. Keeping within power band while rowing the gears while the engine is yelling is entire point of manual ICE sports car. Or a motorcycle for that matter
Also GR Corolla is for zooming around the race track, not hitting 0-60 times, and it has roots in GR Yaris which is homologation special WRC car.
>I get traditional car culture,
I don't think you do
> but electrics embody the "money talks, wealth whispers" truism.
And I don't think it does. Raw performance (at least the straight line one) in EV is after all cheaper.
[0]: https://www.borla.com/2023-2026-toyota-gr-corolla-exhaust-sy...
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
Anyway, guy picked the right car, just ruined it with the exhaust mod.
I wouldn't consider a loud GRC w/ catback a "sleeper" though - it's quite the opposite??
We actually did consider a GR corolla, but ended up getting a used evo x that's been pretty fun instead.
Do you have a lift in your garage?
Car people seem to have got 'louder' and 'stronger' correlated in their heads, but they are NOT.
It's insanely fun. I previously had a BRZ which was also a lot of fun. This is a whole new beast. Especially in not ideal conditions (wet road in the fog on a mountain and presumably in snow or dirt).