There was I looking through some photographs of my trip to America last year when I found a few snippets of video. These videos aren't brilliantly filmed on expensive HD cameras and they're not filmed by a trained professional cameraman, they're filmed by me on a tiny hand held digital still camera. We can overlook that though can't we? What you'll see contained within each of them is a brief moment, a moment when my mouth was open, aghast at what I was seeing, feeling, hearing and experiencing, a moment when I was having to pinch myself to check I wasn't dreaming. I thought you might enjoy a little piece of that too.

 This first clip was taken about five minutes after I reached Bonneville Salt Flats, we'd driven all day and I wanted to have a quick look at the salt before we found a hotel and some food. We pulled off Highway 80 and went to the 'bend in the road' where the hardcore rodders and racers camp between race days. This is what we found:

 

The same evening we went into Wendover for a meal at the Rainbow Casino where the visual treats continued, the car parks were packed with push trucks and hot rods. As you drove around you could see salt on cars, in wheelwells and on the tarmac...tell tale signs of who had been out on the salt during the day. In the restaurant almost every table had a bunch of guys in matching team shirts proclaiming class speed records and sponsors names. This next film was taken just after midnight in the Rainbow Casino car park:

 

It's the stuff that dreams are made of. For our last video we're going onto the salt proper, past the bend an the road, through the puddle and out to where the action is. We've paid our money, tuned the radio to the commentary and it's time to hear the crunch of the salt under your feet with every step as the V8s rumble around you and scream in the distance as records are set and dreams are coming to fruition. This guy had it even better though...he had serious wheels, not a hire car like me...a hot rod. 

 

 

In recent years three nations have been credited for creating the most inspirational and most talked about looks and styles in the car modification world. The German’s brought us not only the Euro look but also some of the first ‘Rat’ cars. The American’s took Rat to the next level thanks to the Hoodride crew, who at the time were a small community with a love for all things low and air-cooled. The Hoodride look soon became a worldwide phenomenon with cars from all over sporting the now iconic stencil. The American’s have also brought us Donk’s and DUB’s, although neither of these have had quite as much an effect as Hoodride (unless you’re a Footballer running a Lincoln Navigator on 22” Chromes) both have had enough significant coverage to become common knowledge to the everyday modder. Finally we have the Japanese. Where do you start? The Japanese modified scene is probably responsible for more trends and styles than any single country on the planet in recent years. Ask someone ten years ago what the JDM look was and they would look at you blankly. It’s the same with Bosozuku and to a lesser extent possibly the Drift cars, no one outside of a hardcore circle of Japanese car culture fans knew what these terms meant or stood for. However in 2008 the Japanese modified scene is a big deal, not just in its homeland but all over the western world too.

 

However, while all this has been going on there has been another country calmly going about its business in making some of the most awe-inspiring cars in the world. This is a country that’s main claim to fame is that it makes nice chocolates and a half decent pint to go with them. That’s right; it’s Belgium, possibly the only country on the planet that is notorious for being a bit boring. That is until you discover this little countries modified scene.

In recent years Belgium has slowly gained a reputation amongst both the Air and Water-Cooled Volkswagen scenes for building some of the most finest and tasteful creations around. But it’s not only the VW’s that are in on the action, the Belgian’s will tackle anything from Renault’s, Peugeot’s and Citroen’s to Ford’s, Opel’s and Audi’s.

 

The main look here is low and smooth, very smooth. If it sticks out the Belgian’s will smooth it, let’s just say badges aren’t a big deal here.

This is known as the ‘Cleaned’ look. The most common candidates for this kind of treatment tend to be modern euro-hatches such as Opel Corsa’s and Peugeot 206’s, as the smooth and low look compliments their curvy styling well.

So is it all about modern superminis? Oh no, the Belgian’s will turn their hands to anything, with big German saloon’s becoming increasingly popular. Again, it’s all about the smoothing with these bigger cars but coupled up with larger wheels and more often than not air-ride to get their barge down to optimum lowness.

 

 

However, as you’ve logged onto this site, you’re probably wondering where the retro content is? Well you’ve guessed it; the Belgian’s do a good line in the older side of things too. They’re probably best known for their air-cooled work having built some of the lowest vintage Volkswagen’s around, many of which feature some of the rarest accessories and extra’s around. Because of this many UK based VW enthusiasts have been making trips to the mainland in search of that elusive, super rare part that has been eluding them making Belgium the air-cooled Mecca.

Not into air-cooled stuff? Well then you might like some of the early water-cooled motors instead. It’s kept simple here, obviously as low as possible and with small, wide wheels and very little else. The body work is kept pretty simple and original with subtle arch rolling to tuck those wide rims in being the only major modification. Again rare and original period parts are high on the agenda. Something like a complete and original interior can gain you serious ‘scene points’ here.

 

 

All in all, Belgium has become a serious player in the ever-moving modified car world. More and more people are starting to turn to this small, unassuming country for their inspiration, especially in the UK’s French car scene who seem to be finding the Belgian’s approach particularly refreshing after years of plastic clad Citroen’s and Peugeot’s. The ‘Cleaned’ look certainly looks set to stay and for me that can only be a good thing, the more immaculately prepared and tastefully modified cars we start building over here the better.

All pictures taken from the fantastic Cleaned.be make sure you go and check it out!

The great thing about being a web based magazine is the fact we can point out great things that live in traditional paper magazines without worrying about stupid things like market share and publishers and all that jazz.  Hot Rod magazine is an institution, having been around from the early days of hot rod culture as a paper fanzine all the way up to the present day championing causes like environmental impact of scraping old cars they have always been involved in the hobby of modifying cars.



There is an ill informed opinion that hot rods are all the same, the idea that one 32 Ford custom is the same as any other, or that all hot rods are just the same ideas recycled.  Really though Hot Rod magazine has been leading the way in showing how innovative hotrodding still is with its Dare To Be Different features since 1989.  It is safe to say that in hot rodding circles there are "ways to do things", this is the same in any scene really, certain styles become predominant at certain times.  Dare to Be Different actively highlights those cars that aren't constrained by any of these rules.



Featured in the past have been pro street drag looking road cars, drag racing vans, jet powered VW Beetles, as well as having had a number of now famous people pass through the Dare To Be Different looking glass.



We recommend you to go and pick up a copy of the magazine when they do their big Dare To Be Different features or go and browse their website.  Even if you aren't building anything, or even want to stand out that far, or be that different, it is great fun to try and think like these innovators and see where your ideas can take you.

All images from Hot Rod magazine, please don’t sue us for using them, we love you.

We love the Brazilian car scene because we love two things, obscure cars and lowness.  The Brazilian car scene has both in spades!

Let’s start with this little YouTube clip



The car is taking part in a competition to see how low it is.  Of course we want to find more stuff, so we can trawl through the associated and related films.  The most useful thing that jumps out of all of them is the word "rebaixados", which as far as I can work out means lowered.

Essentially what we often refer to as Brazilian look is wrapped up by rebaixados.  Essentially cars slammed as low as you can possibly get them, from what we can work out the sills need to be as near to the floor as possible.  Wheels of choice seem to be fairly normal steels running hub caps/trim or modern style alloys.  How many of these cars are running air ride and how many are hard slam is still a question we don't have an answer to, and until we find more build up information it is going to be a mystery.  Anyone from South America able to help us out?

In the mean time drop Rebaixados into google and we're off.  A few pages of links to look through and a handy few pages of images.  By looking through the websites we find more car and more links.

To get you started though:

Watch out for the music on this first one (hit the "See More Photos" link on the left hand side); http://www.flogao.com.br/rebaixados

For a cross section of the Brazilian scene; http://www.autocustom.com.br/fotos/

Let’s hope we can all find some more information about this fascinating side of our hobby.

One of the more popular videos currently doing the rounds is this drag racing clip

The car is a 3/4 Chassis 13B rotary powered Toyota Starlet campaigned by Nayeli Racing. It is part of a thriving drag racing scene in Puerto Rico.

The original video comes courtesy of GRS Motorsports who are very proud of having the worlds quickest compact drag car. They also have a number of other videos on their site of what’s shaking in their area.

The racing has a wide range of cars competing from modern to classic, Japanese, American, South American, rotary and piston engines are all represented. It is clearly a very competitive scene with regular races and Vs. events, rotary vs. piston, Puerto Rico vs. USA and the rather wonderful sounding Caribbean shoot-out Aruba vs Puerto Rico.

The main places that run events are Carolina Speedway, Manati Racetrack, Ponce International Speedway Park and Salinas Speedway, so if you are planning a trip over make sure you check the calendars out and get yourself to a meeting.

In the mean time one of the best places to soak up a whole load of pictures is The Racers Shop gallery which contains many photos from a whole host of events. You can also get a run down of what shaking with their Datsuns here, some amazing cars right there.

Hopefully this is just the start of what there is to learn about this scene, where there is drag racing, there is a street scene, where there is a street scene there are hot cars....

There are a variety of phrases used around the internet in relation to Japanese cars, it is perhaps worth an explanation of what some of them are and where they came from in order to understand them better.

The first is the most commonly used expression of Bosozoku, more correctly written as Bōsōzoku.  It's literal translation is 'violent running tribe'.  The term zoku at the end of the word denotes that it is a group or tribe, so you will also see phrases like vanningzoku and the like, which identifies something as being a group.

The Bosozoku have been around since the 50s and are traditionally a very anti social motorbike gang.  They ride unmuffled bikes, with radically visible modifications, usually in a reckless way around city streets in large groups which usually have a uniform.  The cars came along later but have been around since at least the 70's, they are similarly loud, very visible and anti social.  The style of bosozoku cars varies wildly but they will usually have bright paint, radical body kits and preposterous exhausts.

The bosozoku style gets blurred into Garuchan or Grachan. Another word that can have zoku attached to the end, as in Grachanzoku.  The word comes from the 1980's Grand Championship at Fuji Speedway, the car park was a Mecca for bosozoku.  Here it became popular to have the more and more outrageous car styling inspired by the cars on the track.  Some people will say they are grachan instead of bosozoku as they wish to avoid the gang associations and image of reckless driving.

Another term that has popped up on the internet from time to time is Kyusha-kai.  This simply translates as Japanese classic car (Kyusha) group (kai), which is just the normal term for old car lovers in Japan.

Finally we come to Shakotan, which has gained a fair amount of usage outside of Japan due in part to Shakotan Boogie.  This is a common term actually in use in Japan, Shako means ground clearance and Tan means short, so Shakotan cars are short ground clearance cars.  Shakotan cars are more usually hard slammed with cut coils rather than being able to just buy off the shelf parts.  The styles are much more restrained than those of bosozoku and grachan styles.

So there you have it, a brief over view of the culture.  There is much deeper you can go, however you should hopefully be able to identify what you are looking at now a bit better.  I have to thank Ishibashi-san from Funinki Kyusha-kai and Kusa-san for the full explinations as well as Tetsu from Sunny Speed Style for first explaining the different styles.

Pictures by Rmad and our man in Japan Mike at Auto-Otaku