Boosting the wow factor

Want to add a touch of glamour and pizzazz to your car in order to feel like a celebrity? Then customise it. In a special feature on motoring, Philip Shane looks at the accessory-laden world of custom-built cars.

Elvis Presley had his Cadillacs custom painted with crushed diamond-embedded paint. This was in the 1960s and '70s. Modern celebrities have enhanced the art of customisation and that is pretty obvious from pictures of houses and cars in and around Beverly Hills.

Snoop Dogg and David Beckham are examples of people who customise their stuff and make others want to do it too. Today almost everybody wants to look and feel like a celebrity and the good news is that now they have a chance like never before. The media has helped enhance people's sense of belonging to a certain group of mostly like-minded people.

Accessories have played an important role in the individualities of movie stars and celebrities. In fact, where would Armani and Gucci be today if celebrities didn't need accessories? Fashion design houses have gone from designing people's clothes to designing their cars, houses, bedsheets, TV sets, hairstyles even kitchen sinks. How else would Nicole Richie tell her kitchen apart from Paris Hilton's?

That unique look

In today's world of chaos and competition, how would one person stand out in a crowd unless he or she was more noticeable? And what we have seen around the world, Steve Jobs being a prime example, is that people love to follow such 'different-thinking' leaders. People love to be different and to belong to a select group. And the best thing to have is to be a part of a group of people who like to think and be different. Like sitting at a coffee shop with a Macintosh notebook surrounded by a crowd of PC laptop users. Isn't that what marketing is all about – standing out in the crowd?

College-book reading marketers brag about market surveys and how to force people to choose your product over theirs using their formula-based theories and trying to eliminate competition, but the smart leaders make people want to choose you over others in spite of abundant competition. They use emotions, gain trust and then deliver as promised.

All this talk about being different and standing out in a crowd and getting noticed is really what the automobile accessory market thrives on too. Who needs a 'stock' car nowadays? Why should my car look like any other car on the road? How can I take the most average-looking car and turn it into something that looks and feels great and, here we go again, gets noticed? Simple: I accessorise and make modifications if necessary! The result… a car that looks like the 'K.I.T.T' Mustang GT from the new Knight Rider series!

Companies that were formed just for customisation like Hamann, Kleeman, Overfinch, etc have made supercars look and perform better than what the manufacturers intended them to be. These companies usually have kits labelled as stages each indicating and promising a certain level of performance when installed.

The UAE has a large part of its car loving population out looking for the best modifications that they could equip their cars with. There are many international automobile customisation companies that have set up branches in the UAE. There are a lot of new entrepreneurial startups as well. From steering wheel covers to engine ECU modifications, there is a lot you can get done on your car in this region.

A car modified with custom parts to give it the ultimate performance could cost a few times the actual price of the stock car for the modifications alone! While this exorbitant cost helps one get a little closer to the 0–100 km/h dream-time of 0.1 seconds, it also fills the owner's heart with a lot of pride.

Out in the sun

Solar protection films have also gained a lot of popularity in this region with manufacturers going to the extent of explaining in detail how their products have been time tested to offer the best protection in sunny regions such as these. These films are available in various shades and levels of transparency starting from totally transparent to very dark or reflective types. Some film types can be installed in an hour or so, while specialised film can take many hours to install.

Richard Branson is a prime example of humans pushing themselves to the limits of endurance. With his many trans-Atlantic crossings and his successful passion-based businesses, he has inspired many to test their limits in every walk of life. Similarly, motorheads attempt to push the limits of endurance of their vehicles in every possible way. A few rounds at the tracks will help one understand what kind of tuning and changes are required to achieve the perfect balance around the corners or what little reduction in weight at the right areas could help achieve that perfect lap timing.

Similarly for offroaders, a few intense drives up humongous dunes could give the driver a good idea of what he could do to achieve a little more and get an inch ahead of his previous achievements. It could be headers, it could be the weight of the spare wheel or it could even be the factor usually considered by many on the road… the tyres!

The right tyres play a very important role in the performance of any vehicle. Besides the safety aspect and the fact that one needs to make sure that the vehicle is properly equipped with good condition tyres, there are a lot of factors involved in chosing the right tyre.

The tyre is the only point of contact between the vehicle and the ground what ever the terrain may be. The tyre is responsible for making sure that the power produced by the engine is transmitted to the ground in the best possible way. Different terrains demand different tyre thread patterns and it is obvious from the hundreds of varieties we see on different cars these days. How then does one chose a tyre ?

An offroader usually has a tough time doing this because he first needs to prioritise his needs before even considering the available options. A general purpose tyre woud suit most offroaders because they usually have some of the good properties of on road tyres as well as offroad tyres. A big compromise usually, because there never is and never might be such a thing as 'best of both worlds'! If there was, then no one would go for specific products. 'Best of both worlds' means compromise and passionate offroaders would not accept that.

However, once onroad, the vehicle with the multipurpose tyres might not be as noisy or bumpy as the vehicle equipped with the macho offroad rubber.

It gets even more confusing when we factor in another feature – the weight of the tyre. Would your engine be able to supply the right power and torque at the right time to ensure that it's climb is not affected by the weight or aggressive digging capacity of the tyres ? Hmm… do these enthusiasts actually spend a lot of time and energy contemplating this subject. The answer is Yes!

I have seen off-roaders spend weeks doing intensive research trying to find out what the best option for their vehicles could be. I have even seen many try out different options sometimes only to realise that they made an expensive mistake!

An aggressive off-road rock climbing tyre is usually heavy. In fact it is very heavy and it is well suited for manual transmission cars with modifications to the headers and the ECU. These tyres usually do not have the flotation of sand tyres, but have really good climb ability. To utilise the rock climber's ability in the desert, one needs to modify one's engine. The end result is a powerful climber. These tyres when used in comparatively underpowered vehicles tend to make the engine succumb to their weight and digging power during large dune climbs.

These tyres also tend to be a lot noisier on the road and also have lower speed ratings than their multipurpose counterparts.

Sand tyres on the other hand usually do not face the problem of aggressiveness.

They are designed to have great flotation and can usually be found on trucks and camel transport vehicles running across the desert. They may not have the ultimate climb ability of the rock climbers, but can usually take heavier loads. It's a lot easier to drive on sand as well. However, like all specialised products, these tyres have a drawback; they tend to have less traction on road.

Multipurpose tyres seem to have considerably better onroad abilities and better sidewall flexibility than the usual rock climbers. They also have better onroad traction than the sand tyres. The weight of these tyres also seem to be perfectly balanced to suit most vehicles and engine sizes. The compromise lies in the usual inability to achieve the ultimate performance in specific situations.

The problem with chosing the best tyre is that there are too many 'schools-of-thought' and too many opinions. All manufacturers claim to have perfected the art of designing the best tyre, but it's not necessarily true.

The etceteras

Other accessories used by offroaders are custom fenders, winches, snorkels, etc. There is a huge demand for such products and there are a lot of places in the UAE where one can get all this done.

Vehicle suspension lift or lowering kits are also subjects of interest for enthusiasts whether it is for aesthetic reasons or for performance. Road going or track cars are usually fitted with suspension lowering kits which enhance the ground hugging looks and optimise the centre of gravity during situations which require extreme stability. These kits are available with varying levels of clearance and stiffness and usually reduce the amount of suspension travel and hence the lessened ride comfort.

Off-road vehicles also have a huge range of lift options to choose from. Kits that allow users to fit very large tyres on their 4x4 monsters are available.

These kits considerable raise the centre of gravity of the vehicles and therefore, it takes skill to keep it stable in many challenging on road and off road conditions. The right amount of lift required is usually dependent on the size of the tyre that is to be installed, but not necessarily. Lift modifications usually require additional gear box spacers and sometimes modifications to the drive shafts as well depending on how modification-friendly your car is. A well installed lift kit combined with the right looking tyres can result in a very glamorous yet mean looking vehicle.

Accessories like wheel spacers are used to enhance the look of stock vehicles and also provide stability to vehicles by lowering the 'roll-centre of gravity'.

Spacers like all other modifications need to be of very high quality because it takes all of the torque produced by the engine and the wheels are in turn bolted to them.

The world of motor accessories is huge and interesting and it will keep getting better as further limits in automobile performance are reached. Enthusiasts would love to see more products launched that would help them customize their prized vehicles to the extents possible.

– Philip Shane is a Dubai-based motorhead.