Now, this could be a post in the style of a men’s magazine about which lovely lady, or chap, has a perfect derriere.  If this is what you are expecting, you may be better leaving now, or you will perhaps develop an unhealthy obsession with cars.  For those of us who already have an unhealthy obsession with cars, let us ponder the fine art of the rear end.
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Most people when considering their cars spend a lot of time looking at them in profile to get their stance right, or checking out that much photographed front three quarter view.  However a great behind can be equally as alluring, check out this handful of custom and stock back ends.

Galaxian
At the top of the post you will see the very popular Japanese show rod Galaxian.  The rear end is a work of art, fantastic sequential turn indicators, smoothed, sculpted and worked over to create a brilliant complement to the front’s wild style.  The carefully angled plate makes sure that the eye isn't drawn to it, but it is that big cylon style light pod that really makes this back end special

Nissan C110 GTR
Staying in Japan but heading in a stock direction we have the Skyline GTR's collection of roundness and shiny bits.  The format of the lights along with the bumper make for what can only be described as a smiling face, not something you'd associate with the purposeful performance car that it is.  Or maybe it is just me?  Either way the rear end is very neat, and particularly effective on the white cars.

Buick Riviera ‘Boat-tail’
There are a lot of very cool back ends floating around on stock American cars, from Cadillac fins to stingray slopes there really is a wealth of stuff to look at when in traffic behind American cars of a certain age.  For us though the early 70's Buick Riviera 'Boat-tail' takes the prize for coolest rear.  That madly curving rear screen, the big arrow shaped lines pointing to the rear of the car and the shapely hips make for an all round sexy rear end.

Cadzilla
Time to head back to the custom metal, the first thing I ever saw of Billy F Gibbon's 'Cadzilla' was the rear end, a huge purple slope of metal with those long thin lights, framed at the bottom by a strip of shiny chrome bumper.  The huge slab of rear end is further enhanced by the covered rear wheels giving the whole car a kind of retro-futurism appeal, like a 1950's spaceship.

Citroen DS
For our last pick lets head back to some stock metal, all the usual superlatives that get thrown at the DS can be thrown at the back side of this lump of gallic style, innovative, chic, eccentric, it is what it is all over.  Brilliant from all angles the Citroen DS remains one of the most iconic European cars, it's curvy tail works fantastically well with the rest of the body.

Of course there are more than just the cars you can see here in this list, which are your favourites?

Sometimes it is the simple things that make your ride look better, sometimes it is the things that people don't see very often that add a touch of class.  Today’s subject for the In The Detail comes into both of these categories, Valve Cover painting.

Let us start off with an example to get your creative juices flowing :

The actual modification is pretty simple and there are plenty of things you can do with it.  For example you can match it to your body work colour, contrast it with your body work colour, go for the flag of the country your car comes from, or the makers logo, maybe you can go for something more abstract.  If you want to go further you could start to smooth off the makers markings and create a blank canvas for your work.  With this being a modification that is simple to do, relatively cheap and not visible unless you want it to be, you can really try out a number of different things before you settle on something, or keep it constantly changing as your mood suits.

There is a great How To here on the Honda Club website, or you can check out this one on filtsai.com as an alternative.

Inspiration wise you can do some searches for Valve Cover or Rocker Cover painting in your favourite search engine or perhaps save some time and look at this 306 page! thread of painted valve covers on the Honda Tech forum, mainly modern, but certainly inspiring.

I know I’ll be adding some suitable paint to my car shopping list this weekend.

Most if not all modified retro cars take styling cues or ideas from one or more existing, established approaches to altering cars. Be it one variety of race car or something more kustom orientated there are certain parts that almost become a necessity to fit if you’re following that style. This is the first post in a new series looking at some of these must-haves.

Bucket seats have been around since the very beginning of time itself. In fact I dare say if Fred Flintstone had wanted a more supportive seat in his car he’d have used an upturned turtle shell. Soon after those prehistoric days Model Ts were getting the treatment to go racing, stripping off everything not required and the leather or cloth covered bench seats getting thrown out in favour of tiny individual seats.

Even those with less racy but sporting cars wanted some of the action, this Lancia Lambda owner clearly going one better than most with wicker chairs.

Aircraft “Bomber” seats became quite easily obtainable after the Second World War and were particular favourites of US based hot rodders. With the supply of originals now sparse recreations, though not necessarily accurate replicas are popping up all over. New twists on this theme can be awesome like this set of four in a VW.

Here’s another great pair in a Porsche 356.

True race and rally cars are of course required to have better seating than original old slippy vinyl or saggy velour and many a track day car will be caged and fitted with harnesses too. As an example of this and tying in nicely with last week’s rear engine special, here’s the inside of a Skoda 130RS, as seen in this Flickr gallery of the 2006 Barum rally.

Other than being lighter in weight a bucket seat won’t make your car go faster but it will make it a more secure and possibly more comfortable place to be. Along with other similarly themed parts it might make it look like it goes faster.