What are the Club's views on what is 'scene' in the car modification culture?

Picture for attention

I have been going around to the shows of recent and see certain modifications that are considered 'scene'.

Thing is as an avid trackday enthusiast, thanks to the re-education from many on here and automotive engineer for the last 30years, while I do accept significant time is spent to make show car presentable, some of these mods seem to have no other purpose, other than to look cool.

An example I have seen?
Half a cage in an unused rear seat area (with the rear seat retrimmed in the finest colour matching leather), car slammed on KW V3 coilovers with wishbones pointing up, stretched tires on BBS fans, Porsche brake calipers, and a chrome 400bhp turbo engine with motorsport shifter and a 6 speed gearbox. Car cleaned and polished from underside to roof ( mirrors to show the chassis). Obligatory smoothed engine bay. No expense spared kind of build.

These trends change of course but what defines this so called scene?

Last year and following on with this year, we ventured into this area and visited M.I.V.W, ED38, Westside VW, Homegrown.

What are the Club's views, with its pretty experienced members that can specialise on track prep, vehicle suspension, engine control, engine builds, gearbox rebuilds, engine tuning, vehicle electrics and routine maintenance for this part of the VW car modification culture that has existed ever since...?


Discuss...

 

Can you be a bit of both

 

I wish I had shares in air ride suspension companies..

 

If it weren't for the inherent danger & potential illegality of the excessive camber & stretched tyres I'd say whilst its not my taste I admire the work thats gome into it.

However enybody who drives on the road with camber like that & stretched tyres should have their car crushed.

 

For me, function > form.

However, it's a free world. If the committee and members think it's worth encouraging this type of membership, then it needs to happen. There's nothing stopping us having a dedicated track section, and a dedicated scene section.

However, I do feel the club's history as more track orientated and anti-scene may make it difficult to encourage the people that enjoy that side of modifying to see the value in joining here.

 

I was going to mention that, but left it out in the end.

 

my view of 'scene' is slammed so that the arches are practically sitting on the overly stretched tyres. shiny BBS splits or similar, probably no fun to drive although must admit some can look good.

 

Everything should be encouraged and embraced.
You may not like it, you may not understand it, but it's relevant and valid.
I didn't build the roccos for anyone but me, I built something I wanted to drive. They were low, loud and wholly impractical.
I've been part of the "scene" twenty years and I still love it.
For the record, and don't get me wrong here as I don't mean any malice by it, but it was the stuffy, look down the nose attitude to modding the club used to have that stopped me being part of it for the first fifteen or so years. My experiences were not pleasurable ones

 

I'm not a fan of making cars almost underivable, I think the best thing about having a nice car is being able to take it out and enjoy driving it! Just the other day I saw a guy driving a 1956 lotus 11, when he pulled up I stopped and had a quick look and a chat about it, he could've easily kept it as a show car but instead he takes it out on nice weekend days!

I wouldn't disrespect any car enthusiast on the VW scene or even in other scenes though, I still respect that it takes a lot of effort to make show cars, and it's an expression of what the owners think makes cars look great, and these inspire other owners to do their own take on it and we end up with all sorts, it's alright really. I think it's much worse when people do this stuff in unsafe ways to daily cars, like when they're that low that the arches are touching the sidewalls over every bump and cutting grooves!

My modding style is more subtle, recently I've been liking originality. It's quite nice to see a mint completely original car at a show, even if it's not a gti or a fast one!

 

When I past my test it cost a months wages to insure my my 1974 green 1256cc Vauxhall Chevette lol I couldn't afford or insure a Golf GTi or RS 2000 ( I'd probably be dead if I could have )
So I saved up and drove down to a dingey shop in Wrexham and bought a set of Spax sport springs and some Monroe gasmatic shocks . I fitted these and Uniroyal 175/70/13 onto my newly sprayed steel wheels.
I later bought a recon short motor and tidied up the cylinder head with some help from my uncle
We recut the valve seats clean and did a bit of port polishing . It used to go around corners almost as fast as in a straight line admittedly it wasn't that fast in a straight line lol
Next came a proficient stereo with a couple of amps and a dual cone Denon ported sub box

I like mechanicals etc, doing things, building stuff I'd much rather have a car that handles well and goes well rather than looks fast and isn't I like the sleeper and originality but not overly so I'm not going to spend my hard earned on original VW bits unless it makes sense .
But we live in a culture of showing off lots of people can't afford to insure a fast car so they spend there money on making their car look flashy attention grabbing
I'm so not into scene and our club is much more technically and performance focused .
That's what I like and why I joined Club GTi and not any other club
But are things changing is DIY modification becoming much more difficult to do or have done ? How many people can't even fit a 3 pin plug nowadays ?
Also modification is getting more and more difficult to do from a legal point .

It's difficult but you don't join a Cricket club if you love football do you !

 

I just love VWs all shapes and sizes, but even though I have a lowered 66 beetle, I intend putting her back to stock one day. My T5 has stretched tyres and Is lowered but only slightly as she is a camper van and has to have some practicality! As for my GTi, I intend to keep her stock apart from performance enhancement after the 3 years warranty is up!

I like the 'scene' and have been a part of it for many years, but stock is now what I am veering towards. The way I look at it is that VW spend millions perfecting a car so it is powerful and drives well, so who is more qualified to do it than them? Sometimes you can't improve perfection!

That said, I would never criticise someone for it is all personal taste! If everyone was the same the world would be a boring place! Live and let live I say!

 

Maybe that's because of the dangerous mods like stretched tyres & excessive camber?

We all know examples of knee jerk reactions from the nanny state health & brigade, they don't understand the difference, in handling terms, between a 40mm drop & a 100mm drop & even if they did it would be impossible to write legislation to cater for any eventuality, therefore they just prohibit everything.

As with most things its those who take things to the extreme that spoils it for everyone else.

 

A production road car will always be a compromise between performance & fuel consumption, roadholding & ride comfort etc so if you're prepared to sacrifice one for the other it's easy to "improve" on the standard car. If you're happy to give up fuel consumption, driveability & reliability (and you have the money) you could probably build a Mk7 capable of close to 200mph.

 

Get yourself behind the wheel of a mk2 scirocco and try saying that, they are pretty shocking.
The mk1s were cracking but the later models were put together from a spare parts bin.
Imagine an under powered, water filled canoe with brakes off a match box car
And I say all that as someone who ran the register for a long time.
I agree that some of the modding can be hilarious but who really cares? Luckily we live somewhere where we can muck about with cars.
Obviously, I say all this, I've had the hair dryer 18 months. Haven't done anything except fit a cup holder and Bluetooth.
Now that is a cracking car

 

That is an ex PVW magazine car owned by Dan Evans and built by Darren of VW Enterprises on here.
Lowered, Audi wheels, Fully functional 8N TT dash conversion, 16v Turbo with 360bhp, lovely paint work, smoothed engine bay hidden wires and on our stand at inters!
So does this car qualify as 'scene'? If so what makes it 'scene'.

 

I'd say it was quite tastefully modified, possibly bordering on "scene" but only in respect of the wheels which are, purely from a personal point of view, a bit blingy.

For me the term "scene" would describe something that significantly sacrifices functionality for asthetic purposes (camber, stretched tyres), or serves no purpose whatsoever for asthetic purposes (sticker bombing, rat look)