Commenter Of The Day: East Texas Blues

Every state has their own slogon, if not many, aimed at attracting tourism dollars. Who could forget "Virginia Is For Lovers" and "Hawaii: Where The Only Ho Is Don." Texas has, for a few years, tried to lure visitors with "Texas, It's Like A Whole 'Nother Country." It's quite the apt statement... assuming you can get past the sentence construction. East Texas remains the only part of the state that can still correctly be referred to as the American south, though it clearly exhibits the influence from Louisiana's culture to the east and Plains culture to the west. As well, the thick piney woodlands have managed enough of a border so cities like Longview and Marshall have been able to retain their unique and rather friendly identity. This all is a setup to explain why, in the Millen-Tuned Hyundai Genesis post, Instant Karma would qualify that his story takes place in East Texas.

I'll agree that it's really easy to shit on the import tuner crowd. Here in the backwoods of small town East Texas, all the pathetic wannabe F&F riceboys used to consider me an ally because I drove a stock Civic CX hatch. I acutally helped those lil guys out with common mechanical problems and became sort of a mechanical guru to them. Their cars were pathetic however, mostly Civic LX automatics with fartcans and hideous body kits and a slow Celica or two.

They thought I had dissed them all when one day I roll up with my newly acquired 71 MGB GT. I had bashed off the first muffler under the car and had it replaced with straight pipe to the lil toy resonator at the rear, and that car was LOUD, but in a good sounding way. My riceboys were AFRAID of how mean my B sounded, not knowing their little tinny sounding d16's probably made more horsepower than I did. So I pop the hood for them, expecting them to be relieved to see a stock 4 banger with 2 little SU carbs.

I almost couldn't keep a straight face when they saw that my intake and exhaust were all on the same side and one of them busts out, "HOLY FUCKING SHIT HE'S GOT TWIN TURBOS YO!!!!!"

So yeah, people like that are idiots, I have no respect for someone who spends a couple of grand for a wing, body kit and wheels on a Civic when they could have taken that money and done a B16/B18 swap and had a decently quick car.

My one defense of the tuner crowd is that they do make a whole shitload of honest to goodness go fast parts for little Japanese cars. There are a lot of them, ensuring a very available supply of cheap parts that MAY enable you to take a stock Mustang GT. I think that aspect is a very good thing.

But as I have told many a ricer, your body kit will not save you from said Mustang.

[Photo: Hemphill]