- Stance cars as we know them with their giant wheels,
ridiculous offsets, outrageous fitment,
crazy camber assortments of wide body pieces,
and overall freaking uselessness. Have really taken things
to the next level in the last few years.
It really is a trend that takes race inspired modifications,
and turns it up to freaking 300
in the name of all out excess.
And that's kind of the name of the game, right?
Taking things too far in the name of excess has been
around in the custom car scene since the 19 freakin 30s.
And I think a bunch of you guys out there hating,
on the modern iteration of stance cars,
are just a bunch of hypocrites.
Because if you ever modified your car,
at any time, chances are you did something
that brought you closer to some generation's aversion
of stance. But what the hell does that even mean?
What did other generations do to upset normies,
in the name of excess. And how does it relate
to parking lots full of absurdly slammed
and nearly undriveable cars at the modern car show?
And did I actually just call a bunch of you guys hypocrites?
Well, yes I did, and that's exactly what we're going
to talk about. Today, we're going to go over the evolution
of stance cars. But before we jump in head-first,
we gotta hit you with the plug.
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Lets get started. Modifying cars in the name of excess has
been around since the cars of 1930.
People were literally using lead to fill
and smooth holes when they depleted doorhandles and trims.
As well as smoothing out hood size.
And molding body pieces to the body itself
for that increasingly smooth and molded look.
This is also where you really started to see people cutting
off their roofs, chopping out some of the height,
and then putting them back on for that chop top.
Which is probably the most aggressive-looking modification
of all time. Again, using lead as a source
of body filler and bonding agent.
A lot of times the roof lines would even be sloped
back more in the rear to give the car a lower looking stance
in the rear.
Some guys were even channeling the underside of the body
of the car to have it sit lower on the frame.
The formula was simple. Slam it to the ground,
shave everything, fill it up with lead,
and then thus, the term "lead sled" was born.
Come post World War II, people were taking the stuff
to the next level. Tail draggers were literally so low,
that they would scrape the road
and throw sparks all over the place. Sound familiar?
You even start to see some sharp, spiked objects
on the hubcaps. And seeing people swap out parts
from other vehicles to really change that look
into something that's made. Painting their cars
in bright flashy colors and splitting body lines
with a matching or contrast in color.
With huge chrome pieces all over the place
like it was some sort of fancy accessory,
which at that time it was. Then moving into the 50s and 60s,
cars were getting increasingly lower all around.
Accessories for getting a wild
and custom paint was exactly the kind
of thing that people did to take their modified cars
over the top, to get the most attention possible.
Panel paint jobs were extremely popular at the time.
People were using the design elements
to make cars look even longer and lower
than they actually were. This style is what really kind
of turned into the low rider scene.
And it's kind of this low rider scene where
camber made its first appearance as an aesthetic.
And with the huge drag racing boom,
you started seeing people do all kinds of random stuff
to mimic other race cars, but on their street cars.
It was pretty popular to see the front ends
of cars lifted up at the drag strip.
The whole idea of this was to put more weight
over the back end of the car to get better traction
off the line with that weight transfer.
This new gasser look became synonymous with performance
and it wasn't long until streetcars were sending the noses
up in the air to get that mean drag car look.
Even though it was pretty well entirely pointless
on the street. Anyway, moving into the 60s and getting
into the 70s you start to see funny car racing
become extremely popular.
And here the cars had huge rear tires,
large wheels with smaller diameters,
skinny wheels and tires on the front.
You had a pretty ranked look because of that.
And a lot of times the rear had
to even have a taller ride height
to fit a bigger wheel and tire package on it.
During the same time the factory built muscle
car was cruising at full speed. Which a lot
of these funny car bodies were actually based off of.
So it's no wonder you saw this adapted
by the owners of performance oriented cars of the era.
And it was fairly easy to achieve too.
Just toss in some air shocks on the rear axle,
inflate them up until you get a massively
oversized wheel and tire combo on there,
and slap some pizza cutters on the front.
And you have yourself a look a like drag car.
It also brought in a whole new level
of accessorizing things like chrome differential covers,
bright colored suspension and fuel system.
Making things flashy that are otherwise kind of unseen
on mostly stock vehicles.
Moving through the 70s and into the 80s.
JDM car culture started rearing its head
and influencing car culture around the world.
Everything from your VIP Style, Yankee Style,
Shakotan Style cars, all often referred
to as kind of the Bosozoku, drew a ton
of attention with its crazy styling.
And became adopted by enthusiasts all around the world.
I'm sure you've all seen the photos of older 70s
and 80s American cars with these weird, crazy,
fiberglass wide body kits. With fake scopes,
and overall just wild styling, along with added flair
of stretch tires to mimic what we kind of now
call a fender to look feminine.
That is all 100% derived from the JDM culture.
And that is what will we would have considered stance
at that time. Coming out of the 80s and getting
into the 90s and even the early 2000s
we really started to see the Bolton body kit craze come
into life. Instead of really lowering the vehicles a ton.
A lot of guys are just adding body kits
to make the car's body pieces closer to the ground.
And these pieces grew increasingly more aggressive
as time went on.
We're talking about straight up new for speed underground.
The biggest scoopiest, craziest pieces were the ones
of choice and that got the most attention.
The stuff was still very much inspired
by the Bosozoku style trends that were blowing up
in the 70s and the 80s just with a little bit kind
of more of a modern twist. Then as we moved
into the 2010s the wide body kit starting taking
over the fricking world.
If you didn't have a wide body build going
on, your new YouTube channel wouldn't become successful.
And you certainly would not have built yourself
a social media following.
Alongside that really came the big fender to lip fitment era
utilizing expensive and rare multi-piece wheels.
The evolution of this as we come into 2020 and beyond
it seems to be all about the crazy camber built
taking a wide body car and tossing
on these insanely wide wheels with tire stretched
to the point where they barely sit on the wheel.
And introduce so much camber that the fender sits
on the exposed part of the wheel
between the outer rim and the actual bead seat.
It's so (bleep) wild and is completely absurd.
But if you deny the amount of work that goes
into making something like this happen.
Then you really don't appreciate custom work as much
as you may think you do. And I would challenge you
to find the positivity through this style
of modifying the car. Because at the end of the day,
why are we modifying cars at all?
It's all about making something yours.
Your car, as a car enthusiast, is pretty well an all
out a piece of art. In the sense that what you chose
as your baseline, and what you choose to do with it,
is an extension of you and how you express yourself.
Even if that means you're rocking a completely
stock car that you've worked your ass off for.
So before you mutter something
under your breath in distaste at stance.
And wonder where the hell the real car people are.
Look around you and realize that
throughout history modifying cars in the name
of excess has been with us over multiple generations
and is going to continue to grow and change.
And I would argue that people who push the limits
are as real as car enthusiasts gets.
Even if it's not the thing you taste.
So what do you guys think is next?
What's the next trend moving forward?
We actually made a video about it.
It's called "Car Trends Coming in 2021."
So go ahead and go check that out.
Don't forget to subscribe, to stay up
to date with all the crazy content coming up.
And actually we're ad launching a full build series
on Dell's RX8 where we're trying to learn how
to install a wide body kit and all kinds
of other crazy stuff. And if you need anything,
wheels, tires, or suspension comes see the experts
over at fitmentindustries.com. And we'll get you guys hooked
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with any wheel and tire package.
I'm Seanb.FI at Instagram. Thank you so much for watching.
Peace.