Teenagers and Souped up Cars - Essay Example

Teenagers and ‘Souped up’ Cars Thinking about the recent trend among teenagers to trick out their carsgave me a possible hypothesis. I realized that since the development of the automobile, this mechanical device has provided individuals with an impossible to hide symbol of their economic status. When the car was first invented, it was only rich people who could afford to purchase one. As cars became more affordable, those with more money could afford cars that were painted in a custom color or had larger seating capacity. This is what led to the development of new shapes and engines, the emergence of specific brands and the differentiation that happened among them. It is not surprising that this quick and easy means of identifying who you were and, more importantly, how important you were would infect the teenage crowd by the 1950s. As society has become more disjointed with modern technology and increased suspicion, teenagers have lost many of their means of identifying themselves and the car has emerged as a way for them to do this. My personal observations have indicated that the types of tricked out cars owned by teenagers is usually pretty racially stereotypical. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether my hypothesis was right about why teenagers trick out their cars and to discover if there is any evidence of my personal observations in the available reports. My historic conception of the importance of the car is supported by Donna Tennant (2004). She opens her article saying, “The art car is a direct result of America’s hands-on affair with the automobile that began after World War II and mushroomed over the past fifty years to the point where the car is the most powerful and persuasive symbol of contemporary life” (Tennant, 2004). While she spends a great deal of time discussing the various sources from which the newest trend in tricking out cars, the art car, sprang, she also continues to bring out several points I had considered. In particular, she points out the concept that the freedom of a driver’s license gave teenagers a source of status and achievement. She also mentions the idea that the car has become a way for people to identify themselves in a world that is increasingly confusing and mass produced. At the same time, though, she is the only writer who traces the roots of the painted or tricked out ride, which was pretty fascinating to me because it goes much farther back than the first Ford. According to Tennant (2004), the idea of permanently decorating various means of transportation can be traced to the ox carts of Columbia. I would never have thought about how the tricked out car was a means of identifying with a person’s cultural roots. The idea that cars have been a part of teenager’s ways of identifying themselves was supported in the reports I found. Le even went so far as to provide a handy timeline and location for the beginning of the movement toward more tricked out cars. “First there was the hot rod and muscle car days in the 1950s and 1960s. In the mid and late 1980s there was the mini-truck scene” (Le, 2007) and this was followed by the boom in the 1990s of the tricked car. This timeline made me think about how the types of cars preferred by different racial groups might have had some effect on the way in which Le put together his timeline. Although Howard (2005) suggests that the muscle cars died out in the 1960s, Gross (2007) provides some evidence that white kids are still working to resurrect these cars as their cultural identity. One of the brothers interviewed in Santa Fe is pictured in Gross’ article and is undeniably white. He drives a 1966 Chevy pickup truck that he’s in the process of ‘tricking out’. His brother told Gross about his own project fixing up an old 1981 Chevrolet Camero, “The older the better,” Tommy said. “They’re just cooler” (cited in Gross, 2007). This particular picture and article made me start considering what I knew about the types of cars that the different ethnicities seem to be identified with. I’ve always seen Asians driving foreign compacts, Latinos driving lowrider trucks and African Americans driving older, souped up models of Cadillac’s and Lincolns, complete with hydraulic lift kits. The muscle cars and newer model sports cars seemed to be reserved for white kids. These are ideas that I’ll discuss in more detail in a minute. Before I move on to discuss why teens soup up their cars and whether there is any racial divide about who prefers what kind of car, something else that Le (2007) said interested me. He said that the movement to beef up cars started in California. I understand that he is an Asian and lives in California and so I wondered if this was the case because the kids there had a greater access to money and nicer weather in which to experiment or because that’s what Le knew. I didn’t find much support for this idea because places like New York offered kids as much access to money as those in California and poor kids worked two jobs after school in order to drive a car equally as fabulous as something driven by a rich kid. I finally concluded that Le must have simply been reporting what he knew, particularly since he associated the next step in car identity with the mass purchasing of foreign compacts by Asian kids. There was some apparent support for the California idea in Gross’ article (2007), but this, too, was written in California for a Californian publication and by a person who apparently lives there enough to know the local habits. About the most credible source I came across indicating that the trend for tricking out cars had its roots in California came from Tennant (2004) who indicates that “everyone” seems to agree on this location. However, because she mostly talks about the lowriders and their descendents, her support is also called into question. Is she just talking about the trend of lowering a car or is she talking about the whole souped up, tricked out, fixed trend that has been occurring across the country? My question about why teens trick out their rides is directly addressed in Lauren Howard’s article, “Secondhand and Souped-up” (2005). In her article, she illustrates all the different ways that teenagers are improving their cars to make them stand out and stand strong. This shows how much excess goes into the development of a really cool car and how much of the original car is replaced as teens work to make them something impressive enough for the body style. Basically, by the time the kids get done with them, Howard indicates they have basically completely rebuilt the car, with very little to nothing left original. However, her interviews with snappy car owners indicate that status has almost nothing to do with the reasons why teens soup up and trick out. “We just want to add something extra to our cars, so that nobody else has the same thing” (Drew Johnson cited in Howard, 2005). According to this teen, and the friends that are standing around, the reason why kids spend thousands of dollars fixing up an old Toyota Celica or ’81 Camero is not to show off or to gain attention or to attain status among their peers, but is instead just a means of differentiating their car from everyone else’s car, defining themselves by the personal touches they apply. Perhaps I’m living in a different world, but this sounds a great deal like a bid for status to me. The kids want their cars to be as unique as themselves, essentially re-inventing themselves as they re-invent their cars from the brand new stock condition they got them in or the various stages of disrepair the family car has undergone before the teen receives the hand-me-down. Howard also suggests that teens trick out their rides as a way of being seen or calling attention to themselves. This is particularly in relation to the TV shows that make seemingly everyday junkers super-prized possessions with every kind of toy and traveling entertainment a kid could want. By the end of these shows, the owner of the previous junker is thrilled with their ‘new’ car and is seen as a new person altogether. He isn’t the poor guy who just can’t get ahead in life, he’s now the guy who has it all and is, for the duration of the show, the center of attention. This idea of a tricked out car as a means of attracting attention is also suggested by Gross (2007). “You go downtown cruising in one of these old cars, you’ve got everyone looking at you … It’s like when you walk into a room with a pretty girl. It’s for the attention. That’s why we paint them as pretty as we do and make them loud — the louder the better” (Tommy, a teenager, cited in Gross, 2007). Louder doesn’t necessarily mean just making noise, although it can. It also means having an engine that can beat everyone else’s engine either off the line or down the strip, proving you are faster and better than everyone else. Again, though, I see this need to use a souped up car as a means of gaining attention as a means of obtaining or announcing status. If you have a tricked out car, you are somebody, you are worth something and you have the tools it takes to get somewhere. While this isn’t necessarily the case, it seems to be the message that an expensive trick job communicates to other teens. There are many ways that teenagers trick out their rides. As Howard (2005) suggested, many of the ideas that they have are geared around what they see on TV shows, but they generally stay within the realm of the practical for a teenager’s lifestyle. In other words, instead of worrying about getting hardwood floors for their car or Jacuzzis in the trunk, teenagers spend their money on things they can envision themselves using. Zach Fox (2004) talks about how he observed a group of teens with tricked out cars park in a general circle and use their cars as a means of establishing a paved dance floor for themselves. By tricking their cars with massive sound systems and high profile speakers, they were providing their own entertainment in an impromptu setting based on where the police wouldn’t hassle them for a while. Howard talks about how the kids have replaced stock hoods with vented, carbon-fiber hoods, bumper skirts and performance tires as a means of giving their cars extra aesthetic flair, greater control and speed. She also indicates another common feature in the more extravagant tricked out rides is the teenage activity of choice when not driving around town, the video game system and the television. Gross (2007), emphasizing the kids’ need to be heard, illustrates not just the way that the kids spend money on beefing up their engines, but probably accidentally on the reason why they feel the need to engage in the first place. This points again to the concept of status and the impression that he who makes the most noise is the top dog of the pack. The guy with the fastest engine and the sweetest looking car is the guy who will get the best girl and the instant success such idolization usually conveys. With an understanding of how and why teens trick out their cars on a general level, I decided to look into my earlier thoughts regarding the gender differentiations I’d noticed among tricked out cars. As I researched the topic of the types of cars that different ethnicities liked, I was able to find a lot of information about Asians preferring foreign compacts for racing and Latinos preferring lowriders, but almost no information about what white kids and African American kids might prefer. The only true reference I could find to any type of preference felt by white kids was in the report by Gross (2007) in which ethnicity was not specifically mentioned, but the photo that accompanied the article revealed that the kids being talked to were predominantly white and fell in with a white culture. Every effort to find out what African American kids might prefer was completely frustrating. Maybe it was because I was already considering the concept of status and social place, but when I started to think about why there might be such a strange hole in the available material, I started to think about ethnic hierarchies in this country. White people have always had the dominant culture on this continent since they first arrived here. They don’t have any need to assert their authority because it’s pretty much always been what they say goes. Looking at things from this viewpoint, it makes sense that no one would want to admit that white kids are just as susceptible to such outlandish spending as minority kids or that they might be associated with a particular group of cars. African Americans are usually seen as the lowest group of people because they have been subjugated. They were once slaves and they remained oppressed through much of the country’s history. It seems most people would prefer to forget that they exist and perhaps do not acknowledge that this ethnic group would have the necessary funds and interest to participate in the tricked out trend. Latinos, on the other hand, have proven too persistent to be ignored and Asians have much of the money of the country, so both of these groups demand attention. Thinking about things like this, from this perspective, made me angry, but it was too strong of a feeling to ignore completely as a possible theory. Then again, maybe no one else has noticed the same thing I have and I’m just being racist. Maybe because Latinos are supposedly bad elements that cannot be controlled or ignored, there seemed to be more information about Latinos and lowriders than there were about Asians and souped up compacts. There are suggestions in many places, though, that the lowriders were actually the start of the tricked out craze. This is found in Tennant (2004) and Le (2007). For whatever reason they are paid attention to today, Tennant (2004) points out how much the preferences of Latinos were ignored in earlier times as “lowriding is said to have been born in Los Angeles among Mexican immigrants in the 1930’s, even though it didn’t catch the attention of the media until much later.” As the concept of the personalized car grew, the low riders began to get more and more high tech and distinctive. Richard Wright (1999) illustrates the development of increasingly more detailed paintwork depicted on lowriders and the various new accessories that help make them appear lower to the ground than they are. One of the necessities for lowriders, thanks to the dangers of the road, is the need for some means of protecting the car when the roads are bumpy. “Lowriders can be dangerous to drive on uneven pavement, so many customizers go to great effort and expense to install hydraulic systems that allow raising or lowering the body – in effect, a lowrider only when you choose to be” (Wright, 1999). This in itself has developed into a means of customizing the car and introducing a new element to the competition. “By raising and lowering the car quickly, it begins to ‘hop’ dramatically like a jumping bean. There are contests to see whose car can hop the highest, which remarkably can be as much as three feet” (Tennant, 2004). While many authors offered up their descriptions of what a lowrider was, Tennant seemed the most willing to explore why it was preferred by the Latino crowd. This first reason she offers coincides with the general reasons why anyone chooses to spend ungodly amounts of money on tricking out their ride, the need to be seen, which relates back to my conception of a need for status. If you are seen and recognized, then you have a place within the community and you belong somewhere. The degree to which you belong is established by the bling in your ride. However, Tennant (2004) also offers some other explanations as to why Latinos in particular would prefer the lower ride. “The relaxed, leisurely pace of the Latino is in direct contrast to the frantic Anglo-American” (Tennant, 2004) and the lowrider both reassures the paranoid white person that they are ‘lower’ than the whites and remains culturally identifiable with their lifestyles and values. These cultural identifiers include the ox carts mentioned earlier, the Mexican promenade along which young people strolled as a means of ‘strutting their stuff’ and in the mural artistic heritage of old Mexico. Each vehicle becomes an expression of that person, but also how that person relates to their heritage, their culture and their current environment. The available literature showed a similarly strong link between Asian teenagers and foreign compact cars. Le (2007) provides a handy list of the most popular types of cars used in this subgroup. They include the “Honda Civic and Accord, Acura Integra, Mitsubishi Eclipse, Toyota Supra and MR2” as well as the higher end cars “BMW, Lexus, Infiniti, Mercedes and Audi” and motorcycles. In this list, it can be seen that most of the cars and motorcycles used are developed to be aerodynamically advantageous to speed. The modifications that the teens make to these cars are generally geared toward increasing speed first and providing eye candy second. This is not necessarily in keeping with the trends of the other groups, who focus more on looks before speed, with the possible exception of white kids concentrating on restoring old classics which were prized for their engine’s power. But while the white kids are focusing on the engine sizes, the Asian kids are focused on decreasing weight and capitalizing on speed. While the focus on speed might also have come from Japan and the tendency for kids to race, it is also possible that Asian kids are reacting to a general negative social treatment of Asians as a small race. While identifying with a dubious physical characteristic, they are also sending the message that they may be small, but they are also fast, daring white people to try to keep up with them. Through this investigation, I have allowed my knowledge of racist attitudes to somewhat direct my thoughts in trying to determine why certain ethnicities might prefer to trick out different types of car classes in different ways. This was necessary particularly because I couldn’t find literature that discussed the preferences of white kids or African American kids, but could find plenty of information on Asian and Latino kids. Obviously, there is a race element involved. However, there are also several other reasons why kids of any color might choose to trick out their ride, which all can be related back to a search for identity, connection and status within their chosen community. While there are a number of reasons kids will give for why they want to soup up their car, it seems clear to me that they all boil down to one of the basic need to be recognized and acclaimed within the group. Works Cited Fox, Zach. “Late Night on Figueroa Street.” Daily Trojan. (April 26, 2004). University of Southern California. October 21, 2007 Gross, Richard C. “Drive: Cruisin’ in a Bruiser.” The New Mexican. (September 12, 2007). SantaFeDrive. October 21, 2007 < http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/68404.html> Howard, Lauren. “Secondhand and ‘Souped up’.” The Decatur Daily. (July 19, 2005). October 21, 2007 Le, C.N. “Import/Sport Compact Racing Scene.” Asian Nation. (2007). October 21, 2007 < http://www.asian-nation.org/import-racing.shtml> Tennant, Lauren. “Art Car: Icon of Our Time.” The Orange Show Foundation. (2004). ArtCars. October 21, 2007 Wright, Richard A. “For Autorama Entries, Beauty is in the Eye of the Builder.” Joyrides. (February 1, 1999). October 21, 2007 Read More