Losing Your Faith in Humanity at the Montréal Auto Show...

"Flavien Vidal" (flyingfrenchy) 01/30/2014 at 11:54 • Filed to: Auto show tunning horror monstruosity Montreal

4

23

"I got free tickets to the Montreal Autoshow. Do you want to go?", asked my wife last friday. This is how started what would be a very, very dark day for me. I didn't plan to go to the show eventhough I live almost next to it. I went the year before and to be frank, unless you plan on buying a new minivan or a new sedan, autoshows are, at least for me, kind of boring. But I never saw the new Corvette, the Felino was doing its public premiere and it's free, so why not! All-in-all it was a rather basic autoshow... Exept for one thing. One big thing. An entire floor, dedicated to a tuner from the Montréal region, "Zone Performance".

At first I thought "Oh, cool, some tuned Golf, Civics and Corollas, Quebec-style, that should be funny!". I went in the showrrom, rap music blasting at 11, with a big smile on my face, surrounded by people under 20 years old, who were most likely coming here to find technics on how to fit a NOS kit in a trunk already filled with a huge subwoofer.

Then my smile disappeared right away as soon as I stepped in. A Porsche 356 from 1961... stanced to the ground with orange lights and white flashers, all that with black Fuchs wheels and a modified Cox engine...WTF???? What is this?? Why doing this to such a beautiful car?? and what are those ugly stickers?

Photo Credit: Montrealracing.com

I keep going, the classic 800hp '96 Civic that get all the kids to drool onto is here of course, an Honda Accord too obviously, a couple drift racecars and... what is that?? Oh no... Just in front of my teary eyes, was a 1987 Porsche 911 convertible, by "Rick Design" (write it with a crown on the "R"). It's a basic 911, problably a 3.2, but it's been butchered like none other. Stanced (of course), with a 7" wide body (yes, you read that correctly, RWB can go back to bed, we found wider than he does) and some Porsche Cayenne brakes...

Photo Credit: Montrealracing.com

Then came a stanced (I have to stop saying that, they are ALL stanced anyway) Ferrari 308, which was a bit of a relief to be honest, as they could have ended up getting their hands on a good one, supercharged to 300hp (not a bad thing for once) that came along with the massive Rick Design sticker on the windshield... Good taste, good taste, where are you?

Photo Credit: Montrealracing.com

A bit further, in front of a rusty VW Cox (stanc.... oups, almost said it again) was the second ugly 911 of the day. A 997 Turbo with the ugliest body kit I've ever seen in my entire life.

Photo Credit: Montrealracing.com

But the winner (looser?) of the day was a 1969 Fiat 500. The entire back seats were removed and replaced with huge chrome speakers, sitting on a massive subwoofer.

Photo Credit: Montrealracing.com

Next to a Smart with 165 tires on 10" wheels, I was there, speechless. How is it fine for these people to do such things to cars like this? Why don't they stick to crappy Chevys or Hondas?? And these are not the only ones: a '51 BelAir, '62 Continental, '71 Nova, '71 280SE, '66 Cobra (that one was alright and looked untouched except for the wheels)...etc. Why? What happened to that non-written rule of not touching certain classics? Let alone expositing them next to fluorescent Civics??

A little bit of me of died that day, I lost faith in humanity a bit more than I usually do... Sad, just sad.

All the "cars" present on this floor of the autoshow can be found here: !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Please share if you've had some borderline suicidal experience like this one and what your feelings were when looking at the poor things destroyed by their owners.

Xesty > Flavien Vidal 01/30/2014 at 11:57

1

those just look lowered, thought stanced was with insane camber?

Jedidiah > Xesty 01/30/2014 at 12:01

0

I have no idea what it means tbh—there doesn't seem to be a definition. It's just a made up word that bros use. I wouldn't ask what it means or else a stance-o-mancer will show up and lecture everybody over the differences between "hellaflush," "slammed," "stanced" or whatever other imaginary words they use.

Flavien Vidal > Xesty 01/30/2014 at 12:02

0

I have to admit that I'm not a specialist in "stancing" but from what I understand, it means fitting wheels that barely fit, all that as close to the wheelwells as possible... Like this thing for exemple...

But then again, I'm far from being a specialist in this "trend" or whatever you wanna call it :)

julienjj > Flavien Vidal 01/30/2014 at 12:06

1

Most of the cars there where horrendous. Except maybe for the wide body-ed R32. Riced rides, bolt-on fender and dumb camber where legions.

I usually call the performance zone the "douchebag zone". Lots of random ignorant that pull out tons of riculous claims out of their asses to try to impress their friends...

Xesty > Jedidiah 01/30/2014 at 12:07

1

haha ok. talking about made up words... can we go back to calling wheels, wheels and not rims? (a rim is a part of the wheel... not the whole wheel you weirdos)

BJ > Flavien Vidal 01/30/2014 at 12:17

1

I went to the Montréal Auto Show some years ago and was really underwhelmed - there was absolutely nothing at the show I hadn't already seen on the street. And I do my best to avoid tasteless, cookie-cutter tuner cars and their crowds, so that doesn't interest me either.

Your pictures and description makes me think of this video (I hope your French is up-to-date):

RotaryLover > Flavien Vidal 01/30/2014 at 12:29

0

This is kinda why I stopped going to the Montreal autoshow and the fact that taking a picture of a car is frustrating most of time. I think I didn't miss much this year. Can you confirm this?

RotaryLover > BJ 01/30/2014 at 12:31

0

Ah les Lavallois....

BJ > RotaryLover 01/30/2014 at 12:33

1

J'allais dire qu'on les aime quand même, mais ce n'est pas vrai.

RotaryLover > BJ 01/30/2014 at 12:38

0

On ris avec eux disons hahahahaha

CAR_IS_MI > Flavien Vidal 01/30/2014 at 12:39

1

I am a fan of the 308. Not the most powerful Ferrari, but it is nice looking (I am an 80's kid). I wouldn't call this one stanced, it is lowered, but fits it right, and the knock off F40 wheels do it well. Not sure how well the SC will hold up with that engine, but I like the idea. This one gets a pass by me. The others, not so much.

Luc - The Acadian Oppo > Flavien Vidal 01/30/2014 at 13:01

0

I actually think the doorless Jetta is awesome. if this is legal to drive like that I would totally drive that.

Flavien Vidal > BJ 01/30/2014 at 13:06

0

lol oui mon francais est a jour... Et je croyais qu'il venaient de Longueil ces gens la? :)

Long Live the Longdoor > Flavien Vidal 01/30/2014 at 13:07

0

With regards to the autoshow being a little boring every year: Perhaps the Toronto Auto show is different or maybe I'm a little obsessed, but I look forward to the auto show all year lol. Ours is coming up in two weeks and like the past 6 or so years I am "dragging" my wife, best friend and my father-in-law to see it all.

I look at cars every day online, configuring them, looking a thousands of photos, digesting articles etc. The auto show is my one fun filled day of the year to see all of those cars in person, sit in them and just get a feel for them.

This year my wife and I are actually CUV shopping, so we'll be sitting in all of those, but I'll be sitting in everything else on my list too (yes, I make an Auto show "to-see" list, again, very obsessed).

Flavien Vidal > Xesty 01/30/2014 at 13:10

0

haha I don't know... English is not my first language so I guess this is one of the subtilities of the language I have a hard time getting...

If this is a wheel:

Then what is this?

Honest question as I have witnessed some heated debates over this in the past :)

BJ > Flavien Vidal 01/30/2014 at 13:17

0

Ils viennent du néant autant qu'ils viennent du pays des filles faciles.

Xesty > Flavien Vidal 01/30/2014 at 13:17

1

lol in all actuality it doesn't matter since pop culture has popularized the term "rim" so much that everyone knows what you are talking about.

But for further understanding the parts of a wheel:

Flavien Vidal > RotaryLover 01/30/2014 at 15:06

0

Well, the few cool things were the new Corvette, the Felino, the Jaguar F-RS, the... well, I guess that's it... :)

RotaryLover > Flavien Vidal 01/30/2014 at 18:09

0

That's what I thought hahaha

Weather and Darkness > Flavien Vidal 02/01/2014 at 13:58

0

right next to this was the most obscene mismatch of tyre to rim sizing i've ever seen.

davlac89 > Flavien Vidal 02/04/2014 at 19:56

0

I've been to the MTL Auto Show for the first time this year. Being from Quebec City, I usually stayed in my hometown for the yearly auto show. I thought the Montreal one was going to be bigger with more unveilings so I decided to go.

The tuner section made me feel like I was somewhere around 2009-2010. I felt everything was late. Every car seemed to be measured by widebody. I never hated stanced cars that looked right but almost none of the one there seemed fresh, I had seen better on the street. I can feel that in the real world the stancing and hellaflush scene is starting to slow down, but for the auto show it seemed like it had started this year. I felt like the 2018 auto show was going to be full of stanced cars when this trend was going to be out for years. Definitely the person who handled this section was the wrong one.

And I don't mean to be hating, but I seriously do NOT understand the buzz going around Rick Design...

jpunk > Long Live the Longdoor 02/04/2014 at 20:36

0

I was at the Toronto Auto Show last year. The tuner section and Pfaff booth were a lot of fun, but I was mostly testing seats in the regular car models. I might pay more attention to the aftermarket stuff this year since I've already got some bits and pieces on my car.

yung bramblepelt > Flavien Vidal 02/05/2014 at 09:50

0

Let me take the beautiful, clean, organic lines of the 911... and ruin them.