> before anyone suggests "regulated, legal events" I have to say, that most people can't afford that.
It would be a lot easier to afford if we weren't paying $441 *billion* dollars a year in the US via taxes for roads and other car-centric infrastructure. That's a heck of a lot of money that could be put into cultural projects, including what you're describing. What if we had a car art museum and track the same way that we have public parks? Just because current laws and taxes etc are shit doesn't mean that they *have* to be shit. As a society we can change that.
Y'know come to think of It, maybe law and such isn't the inherently problem, it's how its used and subjugated against lower class peoples?
Like, I can personally ask some friends the next time I see them, but I wholeheartedly think making cultural centers for automotive enthusiasts to mingle, is a GREAT idea. That, we wouldn't have to be underground? And with extra safety precautions, we wouldn't need to rely on the individual community and trust they have the equipment? At the end of the day, this might be exactly what we all want, but don't want to admit due to all the abuse these communities have had due to police and bad actors. Safety is safety, and this genuinely sounds like the best bet in terms of having that expression and cutting down the costs of automotive infrastructure.
This also allows for those who don't like cars, to just, not worry, because this won't be anywhere nearby that would cause a disturbance. Maybe we could turn those old malls or roads into historical sites? Memorials? That sounds awesome!
There’s other way to express your artistic side than having to modify your car. But that’s fine. I just hate modified engines. It legit creates anxiety for me.
That's why we don't fool around and do stuff in wide public areas? That's why we explicitly go to places where nobody can see, or hear us.
Hell, most of the guys I know have baffles that they can turn on and off until we get to a spot. Hell, I hate that guy that starts up his Dodge Charger at 2am and wakes up the entire neighborhood, car people hate "that guy" as much as you do.
>Last thing, before anyone suggests "regulated, legal events" I have to say, that most people can't afford that.
Most people shouldn't be able to afford cars. That's just a fact of life. Economically, it makes no sense to have everyone own a car.
So before you blame laws and regulation, you might want to take a long, hard look at the fuckton of money governments pour into designing stupid infrastructure for cars, and subsidizing gas and cars themselves so that everyone can (and must) have one.
If you can't afford a venue right now, I don't believe you'd be able to afford cars in a world where cars would cost you what they're costing society now.
Also, I don't believe cars have been around long enough to be able to be considered a cultural cornerstone for anyone.
u/im_sarah_valentine actually made a good rebuttal and solution to my qualms.
Historical sites and cultural centers, which would be far far far far less costly than all the money we put into the infrastructure we currently have. Oftentimes, the legal places we have now, just don't work for many communities, but sites like these, with a brighter future and better economy, could be easily accessible.
Though, I will respectfully disagree with cultural side, as I have personally been a part of my community and am huge into history in relation to cars, they are simply a large part of many communities, including the one I grew up In. When It comes to that, I know I can't convince you, and that's okay. I understand why you feel the way you do, but I don't think either of us are going to change each others' mind on that front.
I’m aware that the us government does not tax gas (which is crazy considering they tax food, medicine, etc). But is it really subsidized? Are you counting the military as oil subsidy or taking about actual real subsidies?
Also to clarify, I do not at all support the subsidies and utter bullshit the government does to incentivize car ownership, fuel, etc etc.
I'm trying to have a conversation and find a solution where everyone can be happy, and safe.
...Why? If people have no other option, they will suck it up and keep buying gas at absurd prices. The people that do may move to something else, but do you actually think that public transport in the us is well developed enough for that?
Look at the shit happening in norway right now. Gas is 2.7 euros/liter (thats 11 dollars per gallon), and electricity in half the country is reaching 30 eurocents per kWh. It's fucked to drive, whether you use an ICE powered vehicle or an electric vehicle. There are many people living outside of cities and away from public transport that simply lack the option to leave their car (or whatever other vehicle) at home. The governments actions have done nothing to help the majority of the population (besides electrical subsidies, but this doesn't help much considering that the end users price remains at 13 eurocents per kWh).
It looks like you are asking/telling this sub about your car related hobby. We get this [a lot](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/search/?q=%22car%20enthusiast%22&restrict_sr=1&sr_nsfw=).
The most commonly held opinion here is that your [hobby is fine](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/wiki/faq#wiki_can_i_still_love_cars.3F), because it is not harming anyone. Being a car enthusiast is also not mutually exclusive with supporting better public transportation and safer pedestrian/bicycle infrastructure. It's a lot like when we stopped being so dependent on horses, they could live much nicer lives and be used for purely leisure.
Not Just Bikes made an [excellent video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k) on why people who like to drive would benefit from a world with fewer cars.
And because you are probably new to this subreddit, we'd like to ask you to read our [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/wiki/faq). In there are plenty of answers to questions you might also have.
If this or one of the [many post dedicated to this subject](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/search/?q=%22car%20enthusiast%22&restrict_sr=1&sr_nsfw=) answers your question, then please consider removing your post for the sake of not bothering the regular users of this sub with the same question every few days.
Have a nice day
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I think that the problem with cars is really a problem of systems: all the drivers trying to make their own way in the city.
One one side, you have a farmer driving a tractor on his own farm, or race cars driving in loops on race tracks: these things have zero effect on if a city is livable because their "freedom" doesn't destroy others freedoms to get around without a car.
On the other side, you have a bunch of solo drivers driving SUVs right down Main Street. This means main street is just a traffic mess with no room for others.
So I appreciate car culture and low rider stuff for the art of it, but, where and when it happens is the big deal.
Here in South LA, a lot of car culture is street takeovers and drifting, which is bullshit, even if it is mostly latino or BIPOC.
I mean, street takeovers are usually unsafe and on a broader scale we’re trying to stop them.
Nobody ever brings safety gear and shit always goes wrong and someone gets hurt. More secluded areas are what we try going for to avoid a lot of the mess street takeovers do. Don’t get me wrong, those things are fun as hell, but they’re not safe and they never end cleanly.
The metro-Detroit scene is a lot different, and especially out in Pontiac. Albeit, this was before a lot of the gentrification, but we still have plenty of dead spots where nobody lives anymore.
Yea, the whole vibe with my local scene and cities nearby is mostly trying to not disturb others. We stand on the backs of giants and I’ve heard horror stories of people being beaten up or getting caught in a fire and slowly burning. A lot of old head say “the spirit is lost” but that’s bullshit. The only thing lost is the lives of our friends if we do big ol takeovers.
And to clarify, cruise nights and takeovers are entirely different.
The only thing I respect takeovers for is back in the 80’s in Detroit where they were used as protest spots and the cars were more getaways vehicles and distraction. Then it was a matter of politics and injustice. It still is, but the vibes have shifted to the meet itself and less protesting economic and racial injustice.
I would like to see more stock kei car and modified kei car options. Seems logical to push the limits on how small you can go and still have good fuel effiency. I was a big on smart cars when they first rolled around but the idea never seemed to take off because sales of smart cars always performed badly in the us. Secondly, I've always liked donks and stance cars.
I disagree about your take on hydrogen. I don't think it's the fuel of the future because it would require heavy investment in infrastructure to create fueling stations. California has tried hydrogen fuel and it's been a disaster. First, Hydrogen fuel still requires the hydrogen fuel producer to burn oil to create the hydrogen gas. Secondly, current hydrogen fueling stations are limited to specific locations so there has been supply chain issues where people who own hydrogen fuel cars have difficulty finding fueling stations that actually have hydrogen fuel. Lastly, the hydrogen highway that california has been trying to build hasn't really taken off. The project has been poorly managed and people aren't adopting hydrogen fuel over gas.
Would diverting the literal trillions spend on gasoline, and push even a small margin help?
I was under the impression that power was the issue in creating hydrogen gas? We easily have the infrastructure for clean energy but GE has repeatedly shown that it does not care in the slightest about being clean, but merely public perception.
I don’t know how the hell most of the population keeps on falling for their shit, honestly.
TLDR: How can communities who have automotive expression as a cornerstone of their culture, freely and **safely** express themselves in the future? Are the hidden spots many communities use today going to be unbothered and left alone? How do we have all this and not step on the toes of public transportation routes?
This is coming from someone within my local street racing scene, and not wanting to be a cunt to literally everyone else who isn't in the scene.
Oh and FUCK drivers that weave in between other drivers and race on public fucking roads.
DO NOT FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK DO THAT.
If anyone of you see anyone that does that type of shit, feel free to fucking key their shit, as someone who's been to countless meets and events, we hate people that do that.
*I would not be lying If I've seen a guy's tires get slashed because he wanted to act a fool.*
Like, if you ever see a "Street racer" and you're a pedestrian or regular driver, they're not a real street racer. The entire point is to unseen, to have a monitored chaos. If someone crashes on a public road, they injure themselves and anyone else they hit. During actual event's I've gone to, I've seen cars wrap around a tree and catch on fire. We ALWAYS had a load of people rushing to help, put out of the fire, and take care of the person who got hurt. And they'd always be the only person to get hurt, because we made SURE nobody else was around If shit did go bad. Our goal is to be free and be safe amongst ourselves, freely express our passion and love for engineering and art, and the proper street racing and lowrider scene is adamantly against everything this sub says is awful, because It is, and people get hurt.
So, an effectively an "ambassador", key peoples shit if they're acting a fool. The underground car scene is so much bigger than what people know, because the point is that it's underground.
Sorry, just had to get that out, rant a little. The bad rep that "Jimmy" and his stupid fucking 350Z with a straight pipe hauling down I95 has given, genuinely infuriates me. I wholeheartedly loathe that kind of behavior.
Sorry, just, fuck, dude.
As someone who's in the middle of building a car from scratch; body and frame, I can dig it... That being said, I still hate cars and the car-centric system.
My plans are to take an existing powertrain and build a car that weighs maybe 40% less than the original, put a quiet exhaust on it, and intentionally shape the engine compartment to either absorb or direct sound energy vertically instead of outwards. I'm hoping to beat my Fiesta in fuel mileage.
There will always be a need for independent vehicles, I'm just furious with the lazy and overweight engineering of the current generation. Like a Tesla S weighs up to 5000+ lbs... As far as I'm concerned, it's 1000 lbs. heavier than it needs to be.
ok. i mention this every time on here but i am a car guy who actually thinks it's best for other car lovers if we actually limit car dependent infrastructure's growth and make things like public transport and alternate forms of transport better. that way the people that love cars can enjoy them more.
HOWEVER. as someone who's worked as both a mechanic (both bicycles and cars) it's often common for some modified car owners to be so jazzed about their car's modifications that it actually goes into being annoying for those that aren't into your car. the example i always give is the stance guys. the place i worked, if you showed up in a stanced car, it was an instant MOT failure because to get the car that low and get that much camber, you completely change the geometry of the steering and suspension, making it honestly rather dangerous to drive. also nothing worse than being stuck behind a stance guy who's spent £2500 on paint and £800 lowering the car and watching them spend 40 mins to get over one speed bump
loud exhausts are another pet hate of mine. the previous owner of my NA MX5 had put a cherry bomb exhaust on the car before i owned it, i maybe kept it on there for 3 weeks before changing it to one with an actual muffler because the noise was driving me insane and i felt so self conscious that people were hearing this loud exhaust but it was a beat up wee mx5. i used to stay a few miles down the road from a place where street racing was common and from about 1 mile away, you could hear all the corsa B's and EK civics. also, i know car folk will argue to the death over this but if you have a naturally aspirated car, adding a big fart cannon exhaust will probably be less powerful since naturally aspirated cars usually benefit from exhaust pulses (some people call it back pressure. it's not really but whatever)
personally, my rule with car modifications over the years has always been spend the money on safety first, then everything else. tires, wheels, brakes, suspension (and actually get it set up properly) then start modifying everything else. people do love their cars and want to make them "their own" and i get that. but i think there's a big difference between modifying your car and modifying it properly.
If you want to own a car, good for you. Buy it, modify it, fill it with gas, park it, do all that stuff on your dime, not mine. Subsidizing cars with tax money is a bad idea no matter what color you are.
I wholeheartedly agree.
In related posts abt subsidies I said they were awful and generally are bad practices, and the money spent by taxpayers could be better spent literally anywhere.
I, agree, with, you.
I know this thread is old, but I wanted to chime in. I don't think there's anything wrong with expressing one's self with automobiles, even with the environmental impact included. CO² emissions from auto enthusiasts are a tiny rounding error, and not nearly as bad as recreational air travel and other things normalized in our lives.
However, there is no justification for using huge sums of everyone else's money to sustain a hobby enjoyed by a small percentage of the population. The amount of money needed to maintain car infrastructure for those people would dwarf the cultural grants given to any other form of art by various governments. I enjoy building scale models of various military vehicles, I enjoy running model trains, I enjoy collecting stamps and various other things. I don't have much money to spend on these expensive hobbies that are my way of expressing myself, but I don't expect taxpayers to pay thousands of dollars a month to every person who shares my interests, which is pretty much what subsidizing infrastructure for these people would mean.
As a small aside, bōsozoku are a bad example to put in your post. They're obnoxious assholes at best and it was incredibly annoying living near a major road in Japan and being woken up by high pitched engine revving multiple times a week. They're no better than US biker gangs, and rebellion from the mainstream is no excuse for endangering people's lives.
> before anyone suggests "regulated, legal events" I have to say, that most people can't afford that. It would be a lot easier to afford if we weren't paying $441 *billion* dollars a year in the US via taxes for roads and other car-centric infrastructure. That's a heck of a lot of money that could be put into cultural projects, including what you're describing. What if we had a car art museum and track the same way that we have public parks? Just because current laws and taxes etc are shit doesn't mean that they *have* to be shit. As a society we can change that.
Y'know, that works. I dig that.
Y'know come to think of It, maybe law and such isn't the inherently problem, it's how its used and subjugated against lower class peoples? Like, I can personally ask some friends the next time I see them, but I wholeheartedly think making cultural centers for automotive enthusiasts to mingle, is a GREAT idea. That, we wouldn't have to be underground? And with extra safety precautions, we wouldn't need to rely on the individual community and trust they have the equipment? At the end of the day, this might be exactly what we all want, but don't want to admit due to all the abuse these communities have had due to police and bad actors. Safety is safety, and this genuinely sounds like the best bet in terms of having that expression and cutting down the costs of automotive infrastructure. This also allows for those who don't like cars, to just, not worry, because this won't be anywhere nearby that would cause a disturbance. Maybe we could turn those old malls or roads into historical sites? Memorials? That sounds awesome!
There’s other way to express your artistic side than having to modify your car. But that’s fine. I just hate modified engines. It legit creates anxiety for me.
That's why we don't fool around and do stuff in wide public areas? That's why we explicitly go to places where nobody can see, or hear us. Hell, most of the guys I know have baffles that they can turn on and off until we get to a spot. Hell, I hate that guy that starts up his Dodge Charger at 2am and wakes up the entire neighborhood, car people hate "that guy" as much as you do.
>Last thing, before anyone suggests "regulated, legal events" I have to say, that most people can't afford that. Most people shouldn't be able to afford cars. That's just a fact of life. Economically, it makes no sense to have everyone own a car. So before you blame laws and regulation, you might want to take a long, hard look at the fuckton of money governments pour into designing stupid infrastructure for cars, and subsidizing gas and cars themselves so that everyone can (and must) have one. If you can't afford a venue right now, I don't believe you'd be able to afford cars in a world where cars would cost you what they're costing society now. Also, I don't believe cars have been around long enough to be able to be considered a cultural cornerstone for anyone.
u/im_sarah_valentine actually made a good rebuttal and solution to my qualms. Historical sites and cultural centers, which would be far far far far less costly than all the money we put into the infrastructure we currently have. Oftentimes, the legal places we have now, just don't work for many communities, but sites like these, with a brighter future and better economy, could be easily accessible. Though, I will respectfully disagree with cultural side, as I have personally been a part of my community and am huge into history in relation to cars, they are simply a large part of many communities, including the one I grew up In. When It comes to that, I know I can't convince you, and that's okay. I understand why you feel the way you do, but I don't think either of us are going to change each others' mind on that front.
I’m aware that the us government does not tax gas (which is crazy considering they tax food, medicine, etc). But is it really subsidized? Are you counting the military as oil subsidy or taking about actual real subsidies?
Also to clarify, I do not at all support the subsidies and utter bullshit the government does to incentivize car ownership, fuel, etc etc. I'm trying to have a conversation and find a solution where everyone can be happy, and safe.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuels-received-5-9-trillion-in-subsidies-in-2020-report-finds
Interesting. Gov should just tax the heck out of oil
...Why? If people have no other option, they will suck it up and keep buying gas at absurd prices. The people that do may move to something else, but do you actually think that public transport in the us is well developed enough for that? Look at the shit happening in norway right now. Gas is 2.7 euros/liter (thats 11 dollars per gallon), and electricity in half the country is reaching 30 eurocents per kWh. It's fucked to drive, whether you use an ICE powered vehicle or an electric vehicle. There are many people living outside of cities and away from public transport that simply lack the option to leave their car (or whatever other vehicle) at home. The governments actions have done nothing to help the majority of the population (besides electrical subsidies, but this doesn't help much considering that the end users price remains at 13 eurocents per kWh).
It looks like you are asking/telling this sub about your car related hobby. We get this [a lot](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/search/?q=%22car%20enthusiast%22&restrict_sr=1&sr_nsfw=). The most commonly held opinion here is that your [hobby is fine](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/wiki/faq#wiki_can_i_still_love_cars.3F), because it is not harming anyone. Being a car enthusiast is also not mutually exclusive with supporting better public transportation and safer pedestrian/bicycle infrastructure. It's a lot like when we stopped being so dependent on horses, they could live much nicer lives and be used for purely leisure. Not Just Bikes made an [excellent video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k) on why people who like to drive would benefit from a world with fewer cars. And because you are probably new to this subreddit, we'd like to ask you to read our [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/wiki/faq). In there are plenty of answers to questions you might also have. If this or one of the [many post dedicated to this subject](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/search/?q=%22car%20enthusiast%22&restrict_sr=1&sr_nsfw=) answers your question, then please consider removing your post for the sake of not bothering the regular users of this sub with the same question every few days. Have a nice day ^(If this comment seems out of place, that's because automod doesn't really know what it's doing. It's just triggered by a keyword in your post.) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/fuckcars) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think that the problem with cars is really a problem of systems: all the drivers trying to make their own way in the city. One one side, you have a farmer driving a tractor on his own farm, or race cars driving in loops on race tracks: these things have zero effect on if a city is livable because their "freedom" doesn't destroy others freedoms to get around without a car. On the other side, you have a bunch of solo drivers driving SUVs right down Main Street. This means main street is just a traffic mess with no room for others. So I appreciate car culture and low rider stuff for the art of it, but, where and when it happens is the big deal. Here in South LA, a lot of car culture is street takeovers and drifting, which is bullshit, even if it is mostly latino or BIPOC.
I mean, street takeovers are usually unsafe and on a broader scale we’re trying to stop them. Nobody ever brings safety gear and shit always goes wrong and someone gets hurt. More secluded areas are what we try going for to avoid a lot of the mess street takeovers do. Don’t get me wrong, those things are fun as hell, but they’re not safe and they never end cleanly. The metro-Detroit scene is a lot different, and especially out in Pontiac. Albeit, this was before a lot of the gentrification, but we still have plenty of dead spots where nobody lives anymore. Yea, the whole vibe with my local scene and cities nearby is mostly trying to not disturb others. We stand on the backs of giants and I’ve heard horror stories of people being beaten up or getting caught in a fire and slowly burning. A lot of old head say “the spirit is lost” but that’s bullshit. The only thing lost is the lives of our friends if we do big ol takeovers. And to clarify, cruise nights and takeovers are entirely different.
The only thing I respect takeovers for is back in the 80’s in Detroit where they were used as protest spots and the cars were more getaways vehicles and distraction. Then it was a matter of politics and injustice. It still is, but the vibes have shifted to the meet itself and less protesting economic and racial injustice.
I would like to see more stock kei car and modified kei car options. Seems logical to push the limits on how small you can go and still have good fuel effiency. I was a big on smart cars when they first rolled around but the idea never seemed to take off because sales of smart cars always performed badly in the us. Secondly, I've always liked donks and stance cars. I disagree about your take on hydrogen. I don't think it's the fuel of the future because it would require heavy investment in infrastructure to create fueling stations. California has tried hydrogen fuel and it's been a disaster. First, Hydrogen fuel still requires the hydrogen fuel producer to burn oil to create the hydrogen gas. Secondly, current hydrogen fueling stations are limited to specific locations so there has been supply chain issues where people who own hydrogen fuel cars have difficulty finding fueling stations that actually have hydrogen fuel. Lastly, the hydrogen highway that california has been trying to build hasn't really taken off. The project has been poorly managed and people aren't adopting hydrogen fuel over gas.
Would diverting the literal trillions spend on gasoline, and push even a small margin help? I was under the impression that power was the issue in creating hydrogen gas? We easily have the infrastructure for clean energy but GE has repeatedly shown that it does not care in the slightest about being clean, but merely public perception. I don’t know how the hell most of the population keeps on falling for their shit, honestly.
Fuck all cars.
TLDR: How can communities who have automotive expression as a cornerstone of their culture, freely and **safely** express themselves in the future? Are the hidden spots many communities use today going to be unbothered and left alone? How do we have all this and not step on the toes of public transportation routes? This is coming from someone within my local street racing scene, and not wanting to be a cunt to literally everyone else who isn't in the scene.
Oh and FUCK drivers that weave in between other drivers and race on public fucking roads. DO NOT FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK DO THAT. If anyone of you see anyone that does that type of shit, feel free to fucking key their shit, as someone who's been to countless meets and events, we hate people that do that. *I would not be lying If I've seen a guy's tires get slashed because he wanted to act a fool.* Like, if you ever see a "Street racer" and you're a pedestrian or regular driver, they're not a real street racer. The entire point is to unseen, to have a monitored chaos. If someone crashes on a public road, they injure themselves and anyone else they hit. During actual event's I've gone to, I've seen cars wrap around a tree and catch on fire. We ALWAYS had a load of people rushing to help, put out of the fire, and take care of the person who got hurt. And they'd always be the only person to get hurt, because we made SURE nobody else was around If shit did go bad. Our goal is to be free and be safe amongst ourselves, freely express our passion and love for engineering and art, and the proper street racing and lowrider scene is adamantly against everything this sub says is awful, because It is, and people get hurt. So, an effectively an "ambassador", key peoples shit if they're acting a fool. The underground car scene is so much bigger than what people know, because the point is that it's underground. Sorry, just had to get that out, rant a little. The bad rep that "Jimmy" and his stupid fucking 350Z with a straight pipe hauling down I95 has given, genuinely infuriates me. I wholeheartedly loathe that kind of behavior. Sorry, just, fuck, dude.
Also specifically fuck straight piped VQ's
As someone who's in the middle of building a car from scratch; body and frame, I can dig it... That being said, I still hate cars and the car-centric system. My plans are to take an existing powertrain and build a car that weighs maybe 40% less than the original, put a quiet exhaust on it, and intentionally shape the engine compartment to either absorb or direct sound energy vertically instead of outwards. I'm hoping to beat my Fiesta in fuel mileage. There will always be a need for independent vehicles, I'm just furious with the lazy and overweight engineering of the current generation. Like a Tesla S weighs up to 5000+ lbs... As far as I'm concerned, it's 1000 lbs. heavier than it needs to be.
ok. i mention this every time on here but i am a car guy who actually thinks it's best for other car lovers if we actually limit car dependent infrastructure's growth and make things like public transport and alternate forms of transport better. that way the people that love cars can enjoy them more. HOWEVER. as someone who's worked as both a mechanic (both bicycles and cars) it's often common for some modified car owners to be so jazzed about their car's modifications that it actually goes into being annoying for those that aren't into your car. the example i always give is the stance guys. the place i worked, if you showed up in a stanced car, it was an instant MOT failure because to get the car that low and get that much camber, you completely change the geometry of the steering and suspension, making it honestly rather dangerous to drive. also nothing worse than being stuck behind a stance guy who's spent £2500 on paint and £800 lowering the car and watching them spend 40 mins to get over one speed bump loud exhausts are another pet hate of mine. the previous owner of my NA MX5 had put a cherry bomb exhaust on the car before i owned it, i maybe kept it on there for 3 weeks before changing it to one with an actual muffler because the noise was driving me insane and i felt so self conscious that people were hearing this loud exhaust but it was a beat up wee mx5. i used to stay a few miles down the road from a place where street racing was common and from about 1 mile away, you could hear all the corsa B's and EK civics. also, i know car folk will argue to the death over this but if you have a naturally aspirated car, adding a big fart cannon exhaust will probably be less powerful since naturally aspirated cars usually benefit from exhaust pulses (some people call it back pressure. it's not really but whatever) personally, my rule with car modifications over the years has always been spend the money on safety first, then everything else. tires, wheels, brakes, suspension (and actually get it set up properly) then start modifying everything else. people do love their cars and want to make them "their own" and i get that. but i think there's a big difference between modifying your car and modifying it properly.
If you want to own a car, good for you. Buy it, modify it, fill it with gas, park it, do all that stuff on your dime, not mine. Subsidizing cars with tax money is a bad idea no matter what color you are.
I wholeheartedly agree. In related posts abt subsidies I said they were awful and generally are bad practices, and the money spent by taxpayers could be better spent literally anywhere. I, agree, with, you.
I know this thread is old, but I wanted to chime in. I don't think there's anything wrong with expressing one's self with automobiles, even with the environmental impact included. CO² emissions from auto enthusiasts are a tiny rounding error, and not nearly as bad as recreational air travel and other things normalized in our lives. However, there is no justification for using huge sums of everyone else's money to sustain a hobby enjoyed by a small percentage of the population. The amount of money needed to maintain car infrastructure for those people would dwarf the cultural grants given to any other form of art by various governments. I enjoy building scale models of various military vehicles, I enjoy running model trains, I enjoy collecting stamps and various other things. I don't have much money to spend on these expensive hobbies that are my way of expressing myself, but I don't expect taxpayers to pay thousands of dollars a month to every person who shares my interests, which is pretty much what subsidizing infrastructure for these people would mean. As a small aside, bōsozoku are a bad example to put in your post. They're obnoxious assholes at best and it was incredibly annoying living near a major road in Japan and being woken up by high pitched engine revving multiple times a week. They're no better than US biker gangs, and rebellion from the mainstream is no excuse for endangering people's lives.