At the auction platform HiBid, you will find the closeout sale for Ontario speed shop Performance Improvements, which is unfortunately going out of business and liquidating its supply. To the folks at Performance Improvements, you have my sincere condolences; the tuner scene ain’t what it used to be. But it can be again for some lucky auction shoppers, and the stuff listed on HiBid is truly a blast from the past. If I had to guess, probably a lot of this stuff had been sitting in back rooms or warehouses for a while, but maybe now they can find good homes.
Take, for example, a pretty decent collection of Altezza lights, the clear, silver-and-red aftermarket tails named after the Toyota Altezza, aka the first-generation Lexus IS. These were also called “Euro tails,” presumably to avoid Toyota’s lawyers and for their lack of amber lights, although very few “Euro” cars ever came from the factory looking this way. Any readers who aren’t Back-Pain Millennials like me should know these were super popular for a couple of years in the early aughts, but were pretty played-out by the time the troop surge happened. The sale has these lights for all the cool cars from that era: the Honda Civic, the weird hatchback Honda Civic Si everyone forgets about, the Nissan Sentra, the Ford Focus and more. What a time to have been alive!
What else? You name it, frankly. Tons of wheels (or “rims” as they were once called) of varying sizes and quality; lots of K&N filters; aftermarket headlamp sets; a bunch of CDs and computer games; Eibach springs and other suspension parts; and much more. In addition to all the goofy shit, there’s a bunch of reasonably practical items for grabs too, like tools, tables, cleaning supplies, wiper blades and some decent supplies for your own auto shop or home garage. I’d love to go through this box of old catalogs and magazines, too. I’m still pissed I sold all my copies of Sport Compact Car to some kid in a GLI a couple of years ago for like $50 at my folks’ garage sale. [Editor’s note: Ah, Performance Improvements. I’m going to miss this place. For anyone who didn’t live in Ontario when this speed shop was still active, it was a whole chain of performance parts stores selling everything from camshafts to questionable bulbs. The perfect place to pick up whatever obscure go-fast parts Canadian Tire didn’t stock before hitting the track, dropping by the local car show, or doing whatever dubious activity happened to be your late-night preference. The thick, glossy catalogs were always wonderful to pore over, but it seems like the internet overtook Performance Improvements and the chain never really recovered. Maybe it would still be around today if it had a stronger web build. Anyway, pretty much every part left is stuff the company couldn’t shift in its final days, which largely means bidders will be slurping up the dregs of the tuner era. Primax wheels from before the main-line rebrand to XXR, APC tail lights, that sort of stuff. I’m not even sure if there are any B15 Nissan Sentras left in Ontario to slap those lights on, so maybe they’ll end up stashed away in a storage locker until 20-year trend cycles render the Hot Import Nights era cool again. -TH] The shop is also selling some exquisite fine art from the era.
Anyway, if you’re looking to add some style and panache to your life—and to your 2003 Toyota Corolla—look no further than this auction. See anything you like? Let us know in the comments. (Hat tip to Gareth!)
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Then The Fast And The Furious came out, and that catalogue stayed on the counter ALL THE TIME.Wings for Civics. Body kits for Cavaliers. So many fart cans that could be bolted on crudely. And the stickers, my GOD the windshield stickers! And the Pioneer head units with the animated display were pretty damned cool at the time.
Probably the most memorable “clueless guy buys a dumb thing” moment I had was when I saw someone returning an exhaust whistle (meant to use exhaust pressure to make it sound like you had a turbo when you didn’t) because it didn’t work. Trying to find out whether it was broken or not, I asked for a bit of info:
“So, what kind of car is this on?”
“95 Civic.”
“OK, and how big is the muffler outlet?”
“3 inches.”
No wonder the whistle didn’t work; there was NO pressure to speak of coming out of that pipe!
So many people made questionable choices that were in objectively bad taste, but looking back on that time compared to now I can say that at the very least people were passionate enough about their cars to put in time and money into making them how they wanted. There’s still a bit of a scene here now, but nowhere near as big as it was back in that era!
Well there would have been pressure if you up-sold him on a big turbo kit!
Huh! I never knew where that word came from!
In fact, I could never remember the word to begin with and usually wound up calling those lights “Al Jazeera taillights”.
A few minutes later, Security drives over, lights flashing, yelling, because they see a car jacked up with the wheels off of one side. Took a lot of convincing that we weren’t stealing wheels; kept having to point out the NICER ONES ARE GOING ON THE CAR. Lol.
After we left we cruised around Chicago at like midnight blasting Tiesto. Good times.
It started with blackouts- tail lights that were dark charcoal tinted so that you could barely discern what color lenses lay beneath. This was late-80s into the early 90s.
Then came “clear corners.” Your tail lights were all frosty white so they almost matched your headlights. This was mid-late 90s and very early 00s.
Finally, “euro-clears” aka Altezzas. I was surprised at how popular this trend became, but then it died when a bunch of car manufacturers jumped on board. This kicked off in 00s and went about ten years.
For those who don’t know: https://fordowner.b-cdn.net/uploads/monthly_2019_11/20191109_122055.jpg.e96c390ecfe86358214a983d98adc244.jpg
Anyhow as of the time I type this a Loonie is worth 75¢ in U.S. currency. So if $4.00 seems like an insane bargain, remember the price in USD is $3.00 which is not just insane, it’s downright Loonie!
