Why do people modify cars?

A common question that almost every car enthusiast in every part of the world has had to face with regard to automotive customisation is a pretty simple one: why. For most, answering this simple "why" is pretty difficult, as there's no simple answer as to why someone feels the need to chuck out the factory air filter box and replace it with a cold air intake (although within our own circles its pretty simple - more power, better response, higher efficiency if done right).

To explore the depths of why, we have to understand the entirely intangible fascination some people have with entirely mechanical objects. Humanity's defining separation from cats, dogs and every other animal (except perhaps chimps) is that we are tool builders. We see a problem, instead of submitting to the laws of nature and admitting we're stumped, we find ways to bend nature to our will. While that has obvious negative aspects with regards to the environment, the tooling up ability of humans have to be applauded.

With the concept of tooling up comes the ability to repurpose our tools. We love making tools that serve more purposes than designed for, and we love coming up with ideas that make the tools better. It helps if you think of car customisation to be repurposing of a machine that, to many, are more than mere tools.

Its why we take normal family sedans and turn them into fire breathing monsters: because we want to see if we can pull it off, see if there's a single horsepower hiding behind installing fatter spark plug wires. Its why Dholaikhal's oil stained alleyways fill us with a sense of wonder that we would be hard placed to find anywhere else. For some, it's the guitar store and the Stratocasters and Les Pauls hanging off the walls, for some weird people (read: our career page Next Step's sub-editor, Amiya) its cereal. For us, its all about the 3SGTE's, 4AGE's, 4EFTE's, B16A's and B20B's, and what car can stuff these marvels into. There is no possible way to inform the uninformed about why a simple combination of letters and numbers that is 2JZ-GTE or RB26DETT can induce catatonic, limp jawed stares from people like us. The engine-swap: the holy matrimony of man, machine and the laws of physics.

The “repurposing of a machine to make it better” argument falls apart when aesthetic customisation is considered. The explanation is simple, we are largely territorial and we love branding our cars after our individual personalities. The generic form in which the car leaves the factory has very little of the uniqueness that we seek, so we carve our own path via paint, wheels and bodykits. The stock car is the blank canvas, what is produced is mechanical art. Our own, unique, rolling piece of art.

Some would scratch their heads and fail to understand why we get such a kick out of bringing together a whole bunch of parts, from different cars, aftermarket brands, and sometimes even different manufacturers to create one single machine. Why not? If Frankenstein could have raided graveyards for limbs and brain and eyes and a heart to create what would be, in his eyes, the perfect human being, we can have our own monsters as well. We can, and many of us do. We raid parts, bring them together, and inject life into them via electricity, air and fuel.

Like all counter-culture phenomenon around the world, from street graffiti artists to skateboarders to the hippie revolution in the 60's, automotive customisation is largely a foreign thing to us Bangladeshis. Its extra difficult to be accepted as a car enthusiast obsessed with customising in Bangladesh than anywhere else, especially so if someone likes tinkering with his or her car on their own. Labels like “mechanic” are thrown about indiscriminately, and almost always in a derogatory sense by parents: “Ato koshto kore boro korlam, mechanic howar jonno?!” Well, part of raising that child comes with buying toys for it. Toys that will eventually be pulled apart in a magnificent display of guts (of the toy as well) because there are some children who are more interested in how that friction powered toy car operates, than keeping it intact and nice and shiny in the box.

Parents find it hard to understand why their child might have a fascination for what is basically the thing they stuff their grocery into every weekend, friends rarely realise that this obsession goes deeper than acting or being “cool”, spouses brand it a waste of money over a mid-life crisis. We fail to understand why having a loud exhaust bothers so many around us, when there are a host of other issues which need tending to than a person who simply wants to enjoy a car the way he or she wants.