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Posted by gmays 8 hours ago

My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded(www.zocalopublicsquare.org)
140 points | 296 commentspage 3
maerF0x0 2 hours ago|
For one quarter to half the price he could have had a motorcycle which is faster than nearly everything on the road.
driverdan 3 minutes ago|
Motorcycles and cars are not the same thing. Some people like one, the other, or both.
4d4m 5 hours ago||
I wish everyone complaining about other people’s choices here were forced to also post the make/model of the very boring cars the commenter drives. People complaining about others mods are doing it out of insecurity… do you point out loud clothes and styling choices of your coworkers too?
AnnikaL 2 hours ago||
I think it doesn't have to be insecurity. I drive a Hyundai Kona, and have no particular desire for speed or performance; I'm happy for other people to have sporty, fast cars even if they are modded, but I do get annoyed by very loud vehicles (regardless of performance; e.g. small motorcycles or pickups that are very loud are also annoying).

I'm not blaming OP specifically for this, but I don't think you have to drive a sports car to be allowed to be annoyed by loud cars without it being 'insecurity'.

ourmandave 5 hours ago|||
Loud clothes don't roll up in front of my house around midnight with a giant bass thumping for 10 minutes while they pick up or drop off whoever.

Or sit next to me at a redlight drowning out my radio and vibrating my lungs.

missinglugnut 3 hours ago||
The author doesn't do that either.

A 50 year old got excited about a Toyota Corolla and everyone is blaming him for the decline of fucking society.

ggreer 4 hours ago|||
I agree with those comments and my vehicles are a 1990 Mazda Miata that I fixed up[1] & and a Model 3 Performance. The Model 3 looks boring, but is ridiculously fast. The Miata has the stock engine, intake, & exhaust, so it's not loud. It's not fast, but it's very fun to drive.

I don't care about loud clothes because they don't wake me or my family up at night, or interrupt a conversation during a walk, or hurt my ears while I'm waiting to cross the street.

1. https://geoff.greer.fm/miata/

cwillu 5 hours ago|||
> do you point out loud clothes and styling choices of your coworkers too?

If the answer is “no”, will you admit that people complaining about noise are, in fact, complaining because of the noise?

100percentjake 4 hours ago||
Things are posted to HN to be discussed and opined on. For some reason somebody's objectively entry level and subjectively tastless car mods were posted here, and people are expressing their opinions.

And, to wit: 1987 Nissan Be1 2011 Nissan Frontier Pro4x 2014 BMW i3 REX 2020 BMW M2 Competition

All with manual transmissions, with the exception of the direct-drive one.

kayo_20211030 3 hours ago||
I get it - the enthusiasm - I totally get it. I think I'd sell my soul for an 1980's BMW M3.
bix6 7 hours ago||
I used to love cars but the roads are too crowded now for sports cars, between other drivers and cops and cameras you’re guaranteed to have a bad time. These days I’m all about utility for my vehicle (plus e-bike for the thrill). I do miss the stick shift sometimes though.
dzonga 3 hours ago||
everyone specially male should get into either fast motorcycles, fast cars or fast boats.

fast motorcycles are kind a speed run about life - you learn that life is fragile quick. you become deliberate in making your decisions. better to ride when you're 23-25.

the other thing you learn quick - is life is never about fairness - but events.

999900000999 7 hours ago||
This was a great article. As for movies, be the change you want to see. For example,

Fish, Prawn, Crab is an indie Asian American movie in development.

voidUpdate 7 hours ago||
> "Now from the rear it looks like four black bazookas are hidden below the bumper and on start-up it sounds like a fire-breathing dragon"

Ah yes, the "everybody in a 3 mile radius must know how much I spent on my exhaust"-mobile

extr0pian 7 hours ago||
I'm sure the author is a nice guy, but there's nothing I find more obnoxious than someone driving down a quiet neighbor with a vehicle they've modified to be intentionally loud.
lapetitejort 7 hours ago|||
In an alternate universe the cannonball runners, with their cars silent, unassuming, but blazingly fast won over the car modding scene
floatrock 7 hours ago|||
A GR Corolla goes 0-60 in 4.9 - 5.4sec.

My unexotic stock electric does 0-60 in around 4.8sec, +/-.

So the same performance that requires a stupid amount of wasted energy as heat and noise can be had from stock electric, with a couple hundred ms leftover. Do you care about performance, or do you just want to just fart out a bunch of noise?

I get traditional car culture, but electrics embody the "money talks, wealth whispers" truism.

caconym_ 7 hours ago|||
Your "unexotic stock electric" is boring as shit to drive and corners like a boat. Stomping on the throttle and going very fast in a straight line is a big marketing point for modern EVs with an excess of power (and usually weight), but there's a reason the concept of a "driver's car" exists, and if you think it's just about making noise then you really, really, really don't understand why people buy them.
ElectronCharge 6 hours ago|||
By the way, the stock Corolla GR can pull right around .95 G, just like the Model Y Performance...
caconym_ 6 hours ago||
Who cares? Static skidpad performance has very little to do with how engaging a car is to drive, and engagement is what somebody buying a GRC (or a GR86, or a Miata, etc.) is looking for.
ElectronCharge 4 hours ago||
One is an objective measurement, the other is a completely subjective judgement.

As they say, there's no accounting for taste...

caconym_ 4 hours ago||
I mean, engagement aside, you are really just showing your ignorance here if you think skid pad max G is a useful metric to capture real world cornering performance except in extremely broad strokes.

If you want an objective measurement that will usefully speak to how these cars feel to drive vs. each other, check out how much they weigh!

ElectronCharge 6 hours ago|||
I also have an EV, probably the same one as the grandparent...a Tesla Model Y Dual Motor Long Range. It's rated at 0-60 in 4.8s. It also has good handling, with very little body lean through curves, and a lateral G force of around .85 G.

If I switched to the same tires as the Performance version, that would increase to .95 G. That is better than many legacy sports cars.

Those who love engine noise are the modern equivalent of those who, shortly after cars became mass-market, wanted them to include buggy whips. ;-)

Rumudiez 6 hours ago|||
less than 1g is pitiful tbh. I’m no pro but have maxed out the meter on my wee sports car >1g front, left and right. it can only muster 0.5g accel so it’s worse than a tesla, am I right? having put in some serious miles on a model 3, those electrics are in another league — below
mukbangpervert 3 hours ago||||
BEVs are great for non-enthusiasts whose goal is to be transported, but in their current incarnation they are _abysmal_ for people whose goal is _to drive_.

And people who brag about the performance specs of a car whose main selling point is that it requires no skill or attention to drive are missing the point entirely.

caconym_ 3 hours ago||
100%. And to be clear I have no problem with BEVs or boring cars (there is some overlap). I own an extremely boring car, a CR-V hybrid, and it's a fantastic family hauler.

Thinking about it now, I suppose I didn't feel any need for my family hauler to have a hot 0-60 time. It will apparently do mid eighties on the skidpad, which really underlines how useless that metric is for describing real world cornering performance---it's unapologetically a boat.

caconym_ 6 hours ago|||
More spec sheet flexing, more assumptions that for owners of internal combustion sports cars it's all about the noise. More projection. Another person who just doesn't get it.

I'm sorry to be harsh in this thread, but it's always odd to find these weird empathetic blind spots in people.

wredcoll 5 hours ago||
The article literally brags about how loud the car is (and makes it sound likr it was modified to be louder?) so it seems like a reasonable point to take issue with.

Fortunately or unfortunately, driving a car is a public activity and even as a hobby, other people are going to be exposed to it in a way that you just don't get from, say, building model boats out of toothpicks.

I'm a big fan of people having hobbies and enjoying them, but we live in a dense and crowded world where stuff like a loud car can negatively affect literally hundreds of other people.

caconym_ 5 hours ago||
The comments I've replied to in this subthread have nothing to do with the aftermarket exhaust issue. It's just people who've never driven a real sports car (at any price point) posting numbers from the Tesla spec sheets.
ElectronCharge 4 hours ago||
You're absolutely wrong on both points in my case.

I've driven many "real sports cars", and I'm not not just "posting numbers from the Tesla spec sheets", my Model Y is my daily driver.

Ironically, you're the one "projecting".

caconym_ 4 hours ago||
> I'm not not just "posting numbers from the Tesla spec sheets", my Model Y is my daily driver.

Yeah? You measure those 0-60 and max g numbers yourself?

englishspot 2 hours ago||||
it's not just about straight line performance. lots of subie fans won't trade their STI for the current gen WRX, even though the engine is way better, because the driving dynamics are just not as good.

that said, it's possible to have a fun ICE car and not build it in a way that your neighbors will hate you.

la_oveja 7 hours ago||||
this car is about handling in the twisties, not on straigh line.

if you care about performance, you should know that its not only momentary performance what matters, but sustaining it and on repeated occasions. this car is made to be driven hard in a circuit or mountain roads. a electric car overheats its battery and its brakes due to their weight.

the thing most close to electric sport car must be the ionic 5n. the rest is just old people saying "hey look how fast i can launch this car on the highway"

ps: most car people dont care about performance, but about the thrill and the emotion of driving

floatrock 6 hours ago|||
This guy's car may be designed to be driven hard in a circuit or mountain roads, but that ain't what this guy is doing:

> Now when I hit a loopy freeway interchange at night and my GR Corolla carves through the turn, it’s 1996 and I’m cruising in my CRX, getting pho in San Gabriel or rushing to a flyer party at Naga in Long Beach.

So doing the famous LA Stop-and-Go Freeway Circuit.

> We published our own magazines, built our own businesses, and for good and bad, promoted our own outlaw street racer image and our own beauty standard.

Or hitting the 4-way-intersection midnight drift curves.

Lets be honest, most people who drive these kinds of cars drive as many circuits as the average F-150 owner drives on western canyon dirt tracks.

Some do, sure, and if you do that, great, get the best tool for your job. But most people only daydream about these things and simply want the image as an escape from the existential meaningless of their suburban lives (is the op's "midlife crisis" title snark or an actual cry for meaning?)

I'm not gonna prevent people from spending their money on their hobbies, do whatever floats your boat. But if your hobbies are really just reving a loud engine from one strip mall red light to the next red light 1/4 mile down the road, well, that's not the thrill and the emotion of driving, that's a desperate display of loneliness and disconnection.

100percentjake 4 hours ago||||
This is very funny when talking about the GR Corolla specifically because it is notorious for overheating its AWD system after more than a handful of laps of a racetrack.
ElectronCharge 6 hours ago|||
I've yet to have any issues with the battery overheating, and most if not all of the braking is regenerative (no brake pad wear).
Rumudiez 5 hours ago||
the first time I drove a model 3 I felt like I couldn't stop. it's on par with my 80s van that has drum brakes on the rear. the brakes just aren't good enough for sport, the car weighs too much. if this is hard to understand, you're living in a different world from motorsports enthusiasts
frollogaston 21 minutes ago||
You don't need to drive race cars to understand that a Tesla Model 3 stops faster than an 80s van with drum brakes. Sure, probably not as good as a sports car.
lelanthran 5 hours ago|||
> Do you care about performance, or do you just want to just fart out a bunch of noise?

WTF are you talking about? MREs will give you your daily nutrition, can be cheaper than actual meals, and definitely wins points against meals, but I don't see puritannical arguments about "Why do you need a real carrot anyway? Taste is overrated" everywhere.

> I get traditional car culture, but electrics embody the "money talks, wealth whispers" truism.

Sorry, wrong. It's basically lack of taste.

mrguyorama 3 hours ago||
You make this comment as if this exact argument didn't happen 6 times in the past decade when talking about Huel and Soylent
SirFatty 7 hours ago|||
Just like my neighbors with Harleys that drunk drive home at 2a revving the engine.
3eb7988a1663 7 hours ago|||
There is nothing like the rage I feel when a car/motorcycle is moving 5mph in heavy traffic doing nothing but revving the engine nonstop.
drcongo 7 hours ago||
My car has a 3.5L V6 and is almost silent. The only reason to fit one of those exhausts is to be an arsehole to everyone around you.
rootsudo 7 hours ago|
My midlife crisis car would probably be a land cruiser. No need to go fast. Space and chill is best.

A 3 cylinder Corolla, regardless of how fast, is just people transportation at best and in the worst inefficient way possible. A normal base 23k usd Corolla , not saying anything against the car mechanically it is a great machine for what it is.

Just, overkill. Can’t go fast, need to have higher insurance, it’s more at risk for theft, and it’s not easily replaceable as compared to a 23k corolla.

I did enjoy the Vietnamese part and history of fast and the furious. It’s been a good minute since I’ve seen the first one.

KevinAiken 5 hours ago||
The GR Corolla isn't really the same as a Corolla. Different engine, drivetrain, brakes, wheels, exterior, interior, suspension, and more, all built to be a sports car.

It's also very highly acclaimed for being fun to drive, comparable with the other fast hatchbacks (Golf R, Honda Civic Type R, etc), and is pretty fast.

spike021 5 hours ago||
Most people getting a GR Corolla aren't getting it only as a point A to point B car. So your point about it basically just being people transportation is mostly moot.

It's also really completely different from a standard Corolla.

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