With our new members showing off his new motor (TOMGTR) i can't help but notice that modified cars are heading more for the performance side of things.

Yes ok there are still a lot of body kitted cars out there (corsa & saxos)

Is this because people are buying newer cars so can afford to "do them up" or are manufactures offering better options on new cars or is standard trim good enough now ????

Just bacuase performance modding is bigger why should that stop people expressing themselves with spoilers, wheels, bodykits ???

The whole.."Lets slap on big Plastic Parts" is dying out... and for the whole...thats a good thing....

Its a shame to see the decent quality modified cars disappearing, But Im not sad that we're seeing less "Kitted" Saxos and Corsas..

Styles change tho... early 90s wasnt about big plastic things...just nicely styled...nothing oTT....well...apart from the Dimma kits on all the Renaults 5s etc...

Were just going through a different stage...Fast & The Furious Mania has died out a bit...


I also agree that Newer cars are getting better...Quality has improved vastly...

And that is a top quality Modified 206.....Just seen it now...

No matter how much modding dies out, you will never kill of the trademark chav, in his 1.2 fiesta/saxo/corsa, who puts his "performance backbox" on (basically a loud noise), lexus lights and the biggest alloys he can afford, and then trying to race everything he see's, and getting laughed at by everything he see's, when they are not even trying and still beating him!!

People want performance for a good reason, no amount of styling can make driving a more enjoyable experience.

But wouldn't you say being in a car you like make the driving experience better.

Surely if your driving a 500bhp skyline but hate the way it looks you wouldn't like driving it.

but if you had a drop dead stunning fully kitted MX-5 that you styled yourself, modded and had paint all styled by yourself you would enjoy driving it more ???

Power isn't everything !!!!!!!!!!!

But... is it really styled by yourself? How many people actually get custom made kits? Most people just buy run of the mill, common, mass produced kits on eBay and the like anyway... and they get all their idea's from seeing tonnes of other cars with the same shit on over the years.

Style wise, there are only a few "innovative" modders.

Performance wise, there is little in the way of innovation to be done, but more to gain from doing it.

The other problem is, unless the car is a killer car, the sort of competition car, the owner will almost always lose tonnes when it comes to sale time, if they have modified it, as they then end up with a very limited, niche market, where the only people prepared to pay excessive amounts of cash, want to create their own rather than buy someone elses creation. Look how long it took Rhys to sell his Punto for instance, the money he put into it, and the money he got back was pennies compared to it.

It is quite rare that performance mods will ever decrease the value of a car, they are likely to increase it a but, dependent on how expensive they are to do.

The fact that a lot of people nowadays have their cars on finance, and tonnes of other stuff on finance too, and are now struggling to pay it all, and for new modders, finance is harder to get, as well as a struggling economy, may also have an impact.

Not to mention the fact that it costs people 2x as much to even use their cars as it did 4 years ago, when cruising was in its prime, the cost of living has also increased massively, and inflation is soaring, but average wage increases are at least 2% under annual inflation, and garages and bodyshops are charging more and more (and at the same time, bodyshops, imo, are getting a terrible "general industry" reputation for ripping customers off, so trust is being lost in the industry). Maybe its just a question of affordability.

And a LOT of people in the past, were modding simply because their mates were and it was "the thing to be seen doing"; not many of them were doing it to be individual, and not many really "loved" the style of their cars, they just put on whatever looked best that they could afford, and things to get one up on their mates; hence most of them arnt interested in the scene now, and when they look back, a lot of them are almost ashamed of some of the tacky mods they were doing at the time.

IMO its manufactures that have killed off the 'homegrown' modded car, I.E a top of the range corsa now has 18" wheels, a bodykit, plenty of power and good audio. If you compare that to a GSI from 2000 say, its a huge difference. Manufactures now make them so top-end that it is hard to improve on and its left modding out in the cold.

There was a dude called wez on 206 Online before it shut down who had spent 65K on his 206. He kept it a couple of show seasons then put it up for sale for 35k. All people said was "youll never get that when you could buy a specd M3 or similar" He ended up getting 19k for it. Not that he need the money mind.

Also I dont think modifying is as mainstream as it used to be. The local saxo kid was a hero back in the day, now its all been seen before and people just laugh and say barry

Performance modding has died as its getting harder to get more power from a std engine. Makers are putting the cars out of the factory in a pretty decent state of tune, which is hard to increase, and expensive due to electronic managment systems...


Years ago, you could just slap on a bigger carb from a model with a bigger angine and it would work - things are a lot more complicated than that now....

Yes, and also people are already hitting the limits with engines anyway, when I first joined the MG Rover forums, there were guys on there who were convinced that given the rate people were already tuning them, the L-Series diesel engine would easily break through the 200BHP/360lb barrier (adding the first 30BHP is easy peasy for instance), but now they have reached the 170BHP/300lb barrier and seem to have hit a physical brick wall, having done literally everything they can to the engines, and are even now looking at the ill-fated G-Series engine for idea's on how to rape some more performance out of it!!

I dunno why they want more and more, but they do, and I think performance modding is common for two reasons; it is pretty easy and cheap to do basic performance modding, and secondly, the people who have hit the practical peak of how much they can push an engine safely, see it as a massive challenge to get just that little bit more out, and will do anything they can to achieve it.

One thing not mentioned yet is "Sleepers" for instance corsa's with Let engines, Vr6 mk1/2 golfs, escort mk3's with cosworth power etc.

Std cars is the new modifyed. Ie colour coded plastics, subtle vents, smoothing Euro style ETC

Who would of thought you could get near 600bhp from a Zetec engine 6 years ago........

I remember hearing some along the lines of what stuy is saying about the Evo 9 FQ400.

That thing is so tuned fromt he factory it is impossible to get any more power from it, BUT, if you get the FQ360 you can crack 1000bhp with the right know how!!!!

Maybe stuy can clear that up for me

I think you have missed the point, for a 320 to break for instance 500bhp it would be cheaper than a 400 due to the actal price of car etc....

I never really got into modding as such. Never seen the point in putting something on the car that did not serve a purpose. Like most bodykits look good on the whole, but do the aerodynamics of the cars no uses, add weight and do not help with cooling. Just my 2p worth