The Tuner Community; Now and Forever

Hey all.  As of recently I've been noticing some pretty awesome trends going on in the community.

A shot from Canibeat's Website by Photographer, Sean Bradford.  Canibeat showcases many cars from shows all over the country.  A big part of this boom in the scene is due to their fanaticism about the industry. Source

Roof racks and Hellaflush were the beginnings of a so-called dilution of the industry by some die-hards.  What was once a sport of trying to make your import car faster by modifying its intake, ECU, exhaust, turbo, internals, and more has now become the sport of not only "show," but some would argue it has become more about "go."  And honestly, maybe this is true!

Shot I took at WEKFEST East

But with this recent boom in the scene, we're seeing more attention from the major auto makers.  Perhaps this is what drove Honda to bring back the NSX or perhaps this is what prompted Toyota and Subaru to bring into production a lovely front-engine, rear-wheel sports car by name of the Scion FR-S or Subaru BRZ.

From Lexi.Laron's coverage of the Philly International Auto Show of 2012

I mean let's face it, people are Tweeting more, they're Facebooking more, they're Instagramming more, they're making verbs out of just about every bit of social media out there and it's enabling people who are in touch with the car community to make that transitive link that we have been searching for.  Now the car companies don't have to go, "How do I reeech these keeeeds?"  They can just go do it now (heck, they can do it here)!

Source

But I think one of the best parts is that we are seeing stolen cars and car parts being recovered thanks to sick cars that are shown by Facebook Pages that have a lot of likes.  A page will post a "STOLEN" article and everyone will share it and spread the word!  What better way is there to find something than to have everyone looking for it, right?  Just take for example this recent story about a man in Hawaii who had a rare set of custom wheels stolen and returned to him thanks to the wonders of social media!

Only scumbags destroy people's passion ;)

I mean, this is great.  We're getting more attention from car makers and we're making it harder for people to jack our crap!  Sure, we may be getting more negative attention from the cops while on the roads, but that's a price I'm willing to pay.  I hope that in the future the tuner community moves forward to continue diversifying, whether it be building full race cars with monkeys strapped to them or replacing their motors with horses, watching out for its members and their goods, and making contact with the major car makers.

All in all, I'm Lexi.Laron and I'm signing out.