The fine line between style and Chav!

[waynne]

How would you define the difference between a stylishly modded car and a Chav car?

Is it based on how much money a person spends - with the Chav being the cheapskates?

[Prince]

Chav cars are generally only have colour coded kits, no re-sprays. The chav car will be Corsa or a Saxo or some other 1.2 variant. There will be no performance upgrades, just exterior. Racing stripes, unless on a Dodge Viper, look chavvy.

A chav look isn't based on how much you spend but what you spend it on. Chavs tend to pick out the worst body kits!

[Massive]

yea the ones that dont look like they dont fit right, also they tend to buy big alloys, which look smart but on a tiny corsa the extra width of the tyre looks dumb, also lets not forget bucket seats, HUGE backbox and chrome wingmirrors! style is when everything looks like it belongs, i.e. leather seats would look nice than buckets in alot of cars in my opinion, unless you have an evo or something

[waynne]

So is it the car or the parts that make it Chavvy? A skyline with a stick on carbon fibre sticker on the bonnet and plastic wheel trims would look chavvy.

A widebodied Corsa with some nice alloys and cool paintjob can look great? (Or can it?)

[Prince]

Originally Posted by waynne

So is it the car or the parts that make it Chavvy? A skyline with a stick on carbon fibre sticker on the bonnet and plastic wheel trims would look chavvy.

A widebodied Corsa with some nice alloys and cool paintjob can look great? (Or can it?)

The Skyline wouldn't look chavvy it would just be styled really awfully! The Corsa may look ok, but you'd bet all your money on it being a 1.2...therefore making it chavvy!

[pgarner]

ok if its been driven through a cetain, well known, car shop. all the stick on goodies, stickers, neons cheap car mats etc

[Hayley1]

I think its when people buy crap for there car that really doesn't suit it, i.e 50ft wide bodykits (ok slight exageration) therefore ruining the look of the car rather than enhancing it i.e angel eyes, maybe a custom respray.
Lots of young people modify their car, some i.e the chavs spend a small amount and buy poor fitting kits as they want their money spent to be noticed, others the style icons spend what they have on quality parts.
But with the never ending saga of rising petrol and the usual costs of tax, insurance etc, many people dont have the money to spend on 19" alloy wheels, lambo doors, engine conversions and a full on custom respray!
And whoever can and does actually have them done is very lucky indeed!
Totally of topic sorry.

[herb]

Originally Posted by waynne

So is it the car or the parts that make it Chavvy? A skyline with a stick on carbon fibre sticker on the bonnet and plastic wheel trims would look chavvy.

A widebodied Corsa with some nice alloys and cool paintjob can look great? (Or can it?)

personally i would say their cant be a fin line between style and chav as every 1 has different tastes so what looks chavvy 2 1 person looks great to another
and as for a wide bodied corsa ive seen 1 a van totally smoothed with a white pearl paint job banded steelies stretched tyres and a redtop conversion and to me it looked great but to others probably look chavvy

[Hayley1]

"apparently" my wheels are chavvy because they were in max power magazine.

1. Is max power magazine chavvy?

2. I thought they suited the car and didn't look chavvy!

3. So are my wheels Council Housed And Violent?

[HDi fun]

Hayley1: "So are my wheels Council Housed And Violent?"

I don't think so. Unless they're shod with crappy Nexen tyres and full of parking dings and chips. What I personally think is a bit tacky is fitting huge open alloys when the front discs are tiny and the back has drum brakes.

[Hayley1]

ok, please do not look at a pic of my car wheels then lol.

[herb]

Originally Posted by Hayley1

"apparently" my wheels are chavvy because they were in max power magazine.

1. Is max power magazine chavvy?

2. I thought they suited the car and didn't look chavvy!

3. So are my wheels Council Housed And Violent?

1 imho max power is a crap magazine

2 like i stated above what looks chavvy 2 1 person looks great to another if you like them then keep them

3 now thats just stereotypical not right i have worked on a millionaires house and on his drive had a beautiful m3 and spoiled it with 20" chrome spinners

[Prince]

Basically, a low performance car that has no possibility of being a high performance car with cheap styling mods only on the exterior is chavvy. This same car will have no interior mods (maybe a nice headunit and a bass box in the boot) and no performance mods. The drums at the back of the car will openly be seen through the halfords alloys. The drums will also be painted to make it look more obvious that no performance mods have been done. Typical cars used are the 'bubble' Corsa, Saxo's and old Fiesta's.

[herb]

im sorry but this word chav has been blown all out of proportion dont forget we all have to start somewhere i mean the cars listed above are all cheap cars to buy and mod performance and styling wise but what you have to consider is a 17 year old just passed his test buys a 1.4 corsa b totally standard insurance is going to cost him £2,000 or their abouts so to mod it he has to do it on the cheap eg lexus light £30 of ebay imo look rubbish but to him look nice and are cheap, the callipers and drums are looking a little rusty £20 on some paint a vast improvement but to the other drivers look awful.
so in conclusion i think chav can be described as young drivers on a budget !!!!

[HDi fun]

TO herb: Is CHAV really admissible as a word? It's a flaky acronym at best.

[Prince]

Let's not forget the owners of these cars as well...they are the people who chnage the appearance of their cars to look chavvy...why? Probably because they are chavs themselves.

herb - I think you misunderstood why I mentioned those cars. I didn't mean those cars are chavvy, because as standrard they are not, but when they are modified in the way I spoke about they become chavvy. They are also common cars used for this type of 'styling'. If I saw the same cars modded to a top level of performance then they would not be chavvy.

I agree that some people can't afford to do certain things to their car, but how often do you see these cars pull up next to at the lights having their little engines revved stupidly high? Look over at the driver and the car next time...does it look like they want to just improve the look a little? No, most, not all, will then try and race you!

[herb]

Originally Posted by HDi fun

TO herb: Is CHAV really admissible as a word? It's a flaky acronym at best.

hi mate any chance you can put this in lamens terms for me as im not a very academic person

[pgarner]

HDI yeah CHAV is a word thats been put in the dictonary yet the older scottish word is NED and its not.

Herb ok your 17 just bought yourself a 1.2 corsa costing you around the £2k mark in insurance would you rather not save a bit of money and spend it on something decent. you mentioned lexus lights, now to me on most cars these look terrible yet like you say they can be picked up for around £50 on eba. now would you by these, or save for a few months and buy a set of lights that really suit the car ?

[herb]

Originally Posted by pgarner

HDI yeah CHAV is a word thats been put in the dictonary yet the older scottish word is NED and its not.

Herb ok your 17 just bought yourself a 1.2 corsa costing you around the £2k mark in insurance would you rather not save a bit of money and spend it on something decent. you mentioned lexus lights, now to me on most cars these look terrible yet like you say they can be picked up for around £50 on eba. now would you by these, or save for a few months and buy a set of lights that really suit the car ?

tbh mate if i were 17 now their is a a good chance i would probably buy some cheap and nasty mods definitely not lexus lights as ive never liked them !! but i look back at my first nova a 1.2 merit in red i kitted it like a sr and sprayed the door handles, the outer part of the wing mirror, the petrol cap, and wiper arms, calipers and disks yellow so i think part of modding is learning from your mistakes

[waynne]

Originally Posted by herb

so i think part of modding is learning from your mistakes

You're not wrong there - these mistakes can cost quite a bit of money too! TorqueCars was created to help people learn from others mistakes.

[HDi fun]

Nothing wrong with Novas. OR MkII Astras. That was the era when hot hatches started to get some real performance for the first time. eg. Astra GTe 16 valve. Up until then it was the Golf GTi with about 115bhp max.

[HDi fun]

OR the Escort RS Turbo. 126bhp doesn't seem much now but in 1986 that was impressive. The cars were also much lighter than they are now.

[waynne]

Its all the aircon, gadgets and safety features like crumple zones we have today that make our cars heavier.

[jonski]

bloody safety features!

[Twamgl3]

Originally Posted by Prince

Chav cars are generally only have colour coded kits, no re-sprays. The chav car will be Corsa or a Saxo or some other 1.2 variant. There will be no performance upgrades, just exterior. Racing stripes, unless on a Dodge Viper, look chavvy.

A chav look isn't based on how much you spend but what you spend it on. Chavs tend to pick out the worst body kits!

I can think of a lot of cars that have racing stripes and don't look chavvy, the Dodge Viper is a bit late in that game!

You do not recall the Dodge Challenger? Charger? The Plymouths, the Pontiacs?