5 Ugly Car Mods That Aren’t As Cool As Their Owners Think

Part of the fun of adding car mods is that your project vehicle is a blank canvas for customization. You can make it extra flashy. You can amp it up in power. There is an unlimited number of directions you can take to make your ride uniquely yours. Personalizing your ride is an art form in of itself

With that being said, there is good art, and then there is bad art. While some enthusiasts have grown and developed their skills and taste for modifications that make their vehicles stand out, they also make sense and can be appreciated by the general public. But then there are many popular trends with the culture of car mods that appear cool only to the people that had them installed, and an eye sore for everyone else. So let’s go down the list of common car mods that, despite what their owners think, need to be tossed in the garbage heap.

1. Ben-Hur Wheels

If you’ve ever seen a Cadillac rolling down the road with a set of protruding wire rims looking like they were designed to fight in a Colosseum, you would be looking at a car mod on what is known as a “Slab.”

A Slab is an acronym for slow, low and bangin’ for a subculture of car mods found commonly in the Houston, TX area. Slabs are known to be high-performance, stylish, and large American cars from the ’70s and ’80s like Buicks and Cadillacs. The grab your attention on two fronts: through their flashy style, and by taking up so much space on the road. And in case you were wondering, yes, those Ben-Hur wheels are legal.

While spiked rims could make sense when fighting opponents in ancient Roman times, they may backfire tremendously when trying to parallel park. Into the garbage heap, they go.

2. Cambered Stance

It’s all about that stance, man! Sure, you’ve seen these before where a car’s wheels are positioned at an inward-facing angle. While the owner may not care about what the haters say, they are about to get a harsh lesson in physics. The amount of pressure being put on the axle and sidewalls of the tires is similar to how a ballerina is almost standing vertically on the tips of her toes. In other words, if this is the car mod you want, you’re going to be going through tires like potato chips.

3. The Carolina Squat

The Carolina Squat is a car mod that involves lifting the front suspension of a pickup truck or SUV significantly higher than that of the rear. While fairly popular in certain parts of the U.S., states are cracking down on squatted trucks due to the safety issues they pose to themselves and other drivers on the road. So far, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia have made the Carolina Squat mod illegal, and it is presumed that other states will follow.

It’s for the best anyway. Who else wants to drive a truck that looks like a dog dragging its business across the living room floor?

4. Social Media Stickers

Though not necessarily a car mod in the truest sense, telling people to follow you on social media by way of stickers on your car is a new cry for attention. We already know that many talented auto enthusiasts build and customize cars that can capture the hearts and minds of the crowd. So if you’re interesting enough, maybe people will look you up can follow your content. But if you’re panhandling for followers, all it says is “I’m a narcissist.”

Suddenly those stick figure family stickers don’t seem so bad.

5. Wooden Spoilers

No, that’s not a picnic table nailed to the trunk. That’s actually a DIY spoiler that has become another unfortunately frequent car mod. While real spoilers are used by high-performance race cars to help their cornering ability, slapping three planks of wood together on the back of an old Ford won’t do the trick. Plus, nobody has ever seen one of these drive by and thank, “Man, that guy is cool.”

And if the owner of this wooden spoiler stands by this car mod, just wait until he starts driving at least 65 mph on the highway and see if the rear end survives.