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Getting on a bit

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Aug 07

Getting on a bit

Today, I'm another year older so, I’m taking it a little easier than normal… In fact expect me to take a slightly longer than average lunch break.

But my birthday has got me thinking about how the tuning scene has changed. Each year I celebrate my entry into the mortal realm and it seems that either a new style or car is dominating the market. While I realise that change is good, I think it’s important to also look back and appreciate the cars and styles that have brought us to where we are today.

I started out in the tuning scene cutting my teeth in a performance parts warehouse for Peter Maiden Components. Picking parts for orders, sweeping up in the workshop and making countless cups of tea.

It was good honest, hard work and I got to know the parts from the ground up. Those days 200bhp was a massive figure and only the big name tuners were getting anywhere near that power. Not only that, 15-inch rims were considered massive and 17’s were unheard of.

The first car club I joined was Peach Performance. There was no web for them to have a website, so we had to meet up in a local pub on the first Sunday of the month. The club founders would inspect your car and ask you tuning triva – answering correctly, showing some passion for cars and having a few modifications allowed you to join and sport a car graphic.

Before the web I think that car clubs had a little bit more to offer. The fact that you had to attend meets to be involved helped to cut out the fakers. With the web you can get people logging onto a forum, offering loud opinions and be as fake as a pair of Pamela Andersons jubblies. These people do not help the scene.

Club websites are important and an unavoidable part of today’s car culture, but what we need to do is keep the old skool values. Arrange meets, talk cars, offer a hand with a repair, fix something yourself or at least try.

But, before I start to sound like a right old git I’m ducking out to sip a super chilled pint of the amber nectar. Many happy returns…