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TUNING IN, TURNING ON

It’s fast, dirty and expensive. Almost half of young Canadian men do it. It’s called tuning and it means that fooling around with your car has gone mainstream.

Text: STEVE BURGESS

1 | 2 | 3 | JUL '04

John L. has just been in a serious car accident. Few people would be surprised. John is a "tuner" – a guy who takes ordinary factory-built automobiles and messes with them, souping and tweaking and customizing until that standard-issue car becomes a four-wheeled fingerprint, a personal statement of style. Movies like The Fast and the Furious and Torque have provided a supercharged reflection of the tuner world, presenting tuners as crazy-ass, motorized rebels.

There’s a problem with that image, though: John had a run-of-the-mill intersection accident, and it was the other driver’s fault. Apparently, real life ain’t a Vin Diesel movie.

But tuning is going mainstream, and not just thanks to Vin. The ubiquitous Von Dutch trucker caps popularized by Ashton Kutcher use the emblems and moniker of the famous 1950s California hot rod artist. January’s Super Bowl commercials for AOL.com featured the Teutuls family of motorcycle builders from the hit Discovery Channel documentary series American Chopper. More TV shows, like TLC’s Rides and Overhaulin’, Discovery’s American Hot Rod and Global’s Tencrows Driving Television and Sport Compact TV, are cashing in on the growing trend, as are tuner-oriented magazines, like Toronto-based Performance Auto & Sound and Sport Compact National. Popular Websites, like Sport Compact National’s, list tuner clubs right across the country – from the Edmonton Prelude Club to Club Hyundai Quebec to the Maritime Regional Neon Club – and car shows coast to coast.

These days, it seems everybody wants to tinker under the hood – or at least juice up the stereo. A recent Environics/General Motors poll found that almost 40 percent of all Canadian drivers aged 18 to 29 (and close to 50 percent of young males) have modified their cars in some way, spending an average of $2,800 each. And here’s another follow-the-money sign: Automakers are getting on board. Last year, Toyota introduced the Scion xB, infinitely tunable with its extensive line of aftermarket accessories. The BMW M3 and the Subaru WRX STi are just two high-end vehicles created in response to the tuning craze, incorporating many of the most popular performance modifications. Tuners talk about "show and go" – modifications made for appearance and modifications made for performance and speed.

No doubt about it – tuning is hot, which could mean tuning is dead, at least as a rebellious subculture. Punk was all over for Johnny Rotten when fashionistas started wearing safety pins, and most tuners are not inclined to think of themselves as mainstream. "Tuners have always had a complicated relationship with the rest of society," says Toronto automotive writer Laurance Yap. "There’s a certain outlaw social-deviant element to it that makes it attractive to young people trying to make their mark."

Right now, these social deviants have got me surrounded. Slouched around a table at the Shark Club Sports Bar & Grill in the Vancouver suburb of Langley are Kyle L., Aaron B., Patrick M., Steve B. and Tamer S. (No last names, please – we’re outlaws.) Aaron and Patrick have bikes, while the other three ride around in Mustangs. These guys are all about their machines, and they have a few bones to pick with The Fast and the Furious.

"I was laughing," says 22-year-old Aaron. "I saw cars shifting up six or seven times."

"He lost his floorboards!" Tamer says of the film’s hero. "Who loses their floorboards?"

1 | 2 | 3 | JUL '04