Tuner Car

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Contents

[edit] Definition

A tuner car, normally an import, is a sporty, economic and practical car that is built for the purpose of daily usage, decent gas mileage and comfort, but has the potential of being a high performance car, which requires engine modifications. Some Tuner manufacturers offer their cars with some modifications installed on them, such as the Subaru Impreza STi that is based on the regular WRX model. Another popular choice would be the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution who's performance is much better than the basic Mitsubishi Lancer. The popular import cars are usually either turbo-charged or super-charged engines.

Tuners differ from sports cars in many different areas such as price, engine displacement, horsepower and many other factors. They also differ from typical sedans or SUV import cars; they are lighter, faster and have better handling. These cars are usually Japanese made and are sometimes referred to as "import" vehicles. The driver can customize and personalize their car to their liking. The more popular modifications would be to not only tint the windows and put rims on, but to also modify the engine. Almost everything on the engine could be upgraded to a better performing part such as the air intake or the exhaust. Depending on what the car is "tuned" or set up for, depends on whether a suspension or different modification should be next.

Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R M-Spec Nür.
Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R M-Spec Nür.
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX

These are some of the more popularly known tuner cars:


A Tuner also can refer to the driver of a tuner car.

[edit] Origin

In the 1970s and 80s Japanese motor companies produced many popular performance cars and performance versions of existing cars. However, many of these were never exported beyond Asia. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, "grey imports" of Japanese performance cars became abundant in Western Europe and North America, such as the Toyota Supra. Many factors, such as parts being interchangeable, the low cost of obtaining a used imported car, and networking and e-commerce via the Internet all allowed the expansion of the practice of modifying a low-cost compact car. In the United States, this was in direct contrast to the domestic car production around the same time, where there was little widespread performance aftermarket for domestic compact and economy cars. In the United States, the focus was instead on sports cars such as the Ford Mustang or Chevrolet Corvette, or on classic muscle cars.

Because of their light weight and the increasing availability of low-cost tuning equipment, economy cars and compact cars exhibit high performance, at a relatively low cost in comparison to dedicated sports cars. As professional sporting and racing with such vehicles increased, so did more recreational use of these vehicles. Drivers with little or no automotive, mechanical, or racing experience would modify their vehicles to emulate the more impressive versions of racing vehicles with mixed results. A few detailed examples are below, but the most pointed out instances are aerodynamic attachments to a car, or loud exhaust systems.

The major reason of the rise of this class of automobiles into racing scenes was the Rallying competitions, where highly modified tuners race against each others times in twisty roads. This can be seen in today's tuner culture very easily. Roof scoops, gigantic spoilers and drifting all seem to be derived from Rallying.

Spectators along a special stage watch Chris Atkinson drive past in a Subaru Impreza WRC.
Spectators along a special stage watch Chris Atkinson drive past in a Subaru Impreza WRC.

[edit] Culture

[edit] Muscle car opposition

Tuner cars are known to be at the opposite point from the Muscle cars. There are many reasons.

The first thing that creates this tension is the similar purpose of both of these groups. Tuners, just like Muscle cars, are meant to be fast, cheap and practical, all at the same time.

One reason could be the fact that Tuners are mostly from East Asian countries such as Japan. They are often owned by people from those regions as well. Muscle car enthusiasts, partly because of nativism, and partly because their belief in domestic industrial superiority, oppose this relatively new culture of automotive racing.


These two car classes are even technically the opposite. Muscle cars typically sport large, high gas consuming, V8 engines; While Tuners generally have smaller engines with considerably higher gas mileages. Muscle cars are heavy, durable, non-sophisticated, and simple. Imports, on the other hand, are different. They are much more sophisticated and exact, and are naturally lighter, because the manufacturers had aimed at low gas consumption. They also have more modern chassis and suspension systems. As a result, they have better handling than most Muscle cars. But because of their small engines, their torque curves are sharp when their engines are modified; which results in worse torque distribution throughout the different RPMs.[citation needed]

Essentially this makes tuners better in most areas except straight-line acceleration, often seen in drag racing. Another negativity tuners have in terms of, "Off the line" speed is turbo-lag - the time it takes between hitting the gas pedal, and the turbo to build up enough momentum to, "Kick In." Some naturally aspired, weight loss based tuners exist that don't suffer from it. But the near universal use of turbochargers over superchargers contributes greatly to the issue. However most professional tuners use light weight ceramic blades in their turbos to reduce lag.

Classical muscle cars were simple, they were heavy and with generally poor handling. although modern muscle such as the Chevrolet Camaro Concept, Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger, and Dodge Charger retain the large v8 engines although, have modern suspension, are a good deal lighter, and with computers are more complex, this also improves fuel economy greatly. an example of this is the concept camaro, which has 400 horsepower, and gets 30 miles per gallon.

[edit] Modification

For more information, please visit the Rice Burner and Car Tuning pages.

Although Tuners have proven to be very successful as high performance vehicles when tuned properly, they are often confused with "Ricers" and referred to as "posers". "Ricing" is the term that has become popular to describe their form of posing.

Ricing as a verb, a term usually refused by the "Ricer" him/herself to be used, means modifying (normally Tuner) cars to look high performance, or rather unique; while they lack the performance they pretend to have. It can be seen in many forms such as using "fart can" loud exhausts, Neons, fake Carbon Fiber, and non-functional Aerodynamic body kits.

Ricing, derived from the term "Rice Burner" has a long history with tuners. "Rice Burner" was what East Asian Tuners were use to be referred to as. But in today's racing culture, Ricing does not necessarily refer to tuners. There are Tuners that have been modified to only perform better, rather than visual modification.

[edit] Appearances

[edit] Movies

Without a doubt, the most obvious example of tuner appearances in movies would be The Fast and the Furious film series; which were dedicated to feature tuner cars. In all the 3 versions of the movie , the "hero's" car has been a Tuner.

Car Color Year Driven by Condition/Fate in Film
Mitsubishi Eclipse (Either RS or GS) Neon Green 1995 Brian O'Connor[1] Shot at by Johnny Tran; destroyed after ruptured nitrous tanks explode; not equipped with 4G63 motor
Toyota Supra (2JZ-GTE) Orange 1994 Brian's second car[2] Dom fled with it after crashing his Dodge Charger R/T, Brian handed his car keys to him. In the movie Jesse referred to spending $10,000-$15,000 on this car. In reality there was over $150,000 dollars invested in the Supra.
Car Color Year Driven by Condition/Fate in Film
Nissan Skyline GT-R(BNR34) Aqua Metallic 1999 Brian O'Connor in prelude short movie Street raced and driven across the southern US until its color change to House of Kolors Platinum Pearl toward the end of the prelude movie.
Nissan Skyline GT-R (BNR34) House of Kolors Platinum Pearl with Blue Graphics 2003 Brian O'Connor Heavy Cosmetic, Cooling and Electronic Damage. Disabled by a fictional police electronic disruption device; Impounded[3] (Note car was shown to have no damage even after hitting parking meter, yet frontal damage magically appears in last shot)
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII Street Options Lime Gold 2003 Brian O'Connor Front air dam damage by boat yard gate post and ESD damage on left rear door; used by Tej to mislead police after warehouse scramble scene.[4]
Car Color Year Driven by Condition/Fate in Film
Ford Mustang Fastback Dark Green/White Stripes 1967 Sean Boswell[5] RB26DETT engine from wrecked S15 (originally taken out of a Nissan Skyline GT-R [2.6L Straight Six, Twin Turbo]). Cosmetic damage throughout the entire body.
Veilside '94Mazda RX-7 Black and Orange: House Of Kolor Paint PBC31 Sunset Orange Pearl 1994 Han[6] "Donut Drifted" on a Nissan Skyline GT-R . Raced with Sean's Evo on a mountain. Wrecked after a side collision with a Mercedes-Benz S-Class and flipped upside down. Ruptured Fuel lines leaked, ignited, and exploded, killing Han.

Although the driven car was a Ford Mustang which is typically known to be a Muscle car, but because of the engine replacement with an engine from Nissan Skyline GTR, and the engine of a car is the key for labeling it as a muscle car, it cannot be counted as a muscle car anymore. This mixture of muscle car and tuner can be considered the only exception in the movie.

[edit] Games

  • Gran Turismo series had the biggest influence on the North Americans knowledge of tuners. This sim racing game represents the true nature of tuners while there is little or no options to "rice" those tuners.
  • Juiced series have been always about the tuners and import scenes from the beginning of the series in 2005.

[edit] See also


[edit] References

  1. ^ Kris Palmer The Fast and the Furious The Official Car Guide Pgs 10-13
  2. ^ Kris Palmer The Fast and the Furious The Official Car Guide Pgs 22-25
  3. ^ Kris Palmer The Fast and the Furious The Official Car Guide Pgs 36-39
  4. ^ Kris Palmer The Fast and the Furious The Official Car Guide Pgs 50-53
  5. ^ The Fast and the Furious The Official Car Guide Pg 94-99
  6. ^ The Fast and the Furious The Official Car Guide Pg 94-99


[edit] External Links