Chances are, your auto accessory intentions probably don’t match our perceptions
You may very well be walking around in pink sidewinders and a bright orange pair of pants, Billy Joel-style, thinking you are the bee’s knees.
Other people, however, may be walking around wondering if there’s a Miami Vice musical casting call nearby.
Likewise, while I think my mullet is a subtle and tasteful expression of my priorities in life, you may cross the street to avoid me.
Stance
What it is: Ultra low cars with fat wheels and tires at negative camber (the tops stick way into the fenders).
What you think it means: I am a VIP Initial D bosozoku bippu shakotan kaido racing fiend with demon camber.
What you are actually saying: Actually, I think stance looks great but a lot of people (ie, everyone who isn’t part of StanceNation) absolutely hate it, because it’s pure looks over function.
The haters say it ruins the lines and looks of some low-key cool cars, which is a personal matter; and that it completely destroys the ride and handling, which is objectively true.
The fact is, every generation has a problem with the next generation’s hotrods, but not all of them make personal judgements about the driver.
Dubs
What it is: Originally specifically 20-inch wheels, soon referring to any oversize wheels.
What you think it means: What up, playa? I got all the shorties up in this swanga whip.
What you are actually saying: a/k/a donks (technically a car on dubs), you really, really liked Eminem’s 8 Mile and if you’d just been born a little less privileged and a lot more talented you too could have been the outsider rap god now making eight figures annually.
Also, you spent all your money on wheels and tires and live in a van down by the river.
Chrome
What it is: Cr3 (or Cr6 if you want the good/deadly hexavalent stuff) is a metal with an atomic number of 24 that makes up 0.014% the earth’s crust.
What you think it means: I am a person of wealth and distinction. Observe me and my Virginia Slim.
What you are actually saying: I impulse buy at gas stations and auto parts stores. Underneath these peeling pieces of plastic are rust holes that I can’t afford/don’t care enough about even to slather Bondo over.
Look at my fenders, people! Aren’t they magnificent?
Ventiports
What it is: Buick introduced Ventiports, three or four ventilation holes in the hood, on the ‘49 Roadmaster. The big eight-cylinder got four on each side, the six got three. Buick has used them on and off ever since.
What you think it means: I have graduated past stick-on bullet holes to stick-on fake holes. I am fancy.
What you are actually saying: They were out of stick-on bullet holes, which is fine, because I’d really like to sell my 145,000-mile Cavalier and I’m pretty sure these hole things are going to get me like another $500.
Lifting
What it is: Raising the ride height of a vehicle, usually a truck, through suspension modifications.
What you think it means: I am prepared to load my truck with Mountain Dew and go to the lake for some water skiing, then do some mudding before a bonfire on the beach with a live DJ. Also, Roll Tide!
What you are actually saying: I have a micropenis. It’s actually a not-at-all funny medical condition, but that doesn’t make it any less humiliating.
I’m drowning my sorrows in Natty Light and secretly hoping my huge unwieldy vehicle somehow veers off into a black hole which, even if it’s ever so briefly, stretches by body into an infinitely long piece of spaghetti, before I am consumed forever by the unknowable.
Unless it’s a Jeep, in which case a 6” lift is perfectly fine.
David Traver Adolphus is a freelance automotive researcher who recently quit his full time job writing about old cars to pursue his lifelong dream of writing about old AND new cars. Follow him on Twitter as @proscriptus.