Where Have All The Ricers Gone?

When I was in high school I used to sit in class and dream about owning a 99-00′ Honda Civic SI as my first car. I used to list out all the parts I wanted to buy for it.  Browsing the internet for different modifications I could do. An obnoxious exhaust, APC altezza taillights, an aggressive body kit with EVO style fog light, even underbody neons. I was a full-fledged wannabe ricer. I didn’t know any better. There were no other car enthusiasts in my family to show me the light. The movie The Fast And The Furious had just come out and the ricer movement was in full swing. While the term rice is usually associated with Asian cars, I consider any car with over the top appearance modification ricey. Of course ricey is entirely subjective, but I feel I think most would agree with what I consider rice.

With the sixth Fast and Furious coming out this year it got me thinking about how the car culture has changed here in the US. I very rarely see a newer car riced out anymore. The only cars that seem to be carrying on that style is lower-income people who have bought the previously riced out cars from the 2000s. Most are falling apart. I can’t remember the last night I saw a new Civic with any distasteful modifications. Even The Fast and The Furious movies themselves have ditched the gaudy look for more performance oriented modifications. Most are  vehicles that any car enthusiast would love to own. I’ve seen some of the muscle cars that will be in the new movie and they look more like cars that would go across the Barrett-Jackson auction block for good money. Filled with supercars and other rare sheet metal, the cars in last few movies are so much better than the cars of the first two. I’m sure much of this has to do with a ballooning budget and freedom to build better vehicles.

I don’t know if the fact that I don’t see these types of cars anymore is because of my age and I’m not around that crowd anymore, or if the scene has truly shifted. The car scene here in Charlotte has gone down hill in the last 10 years with the cops cracking down on street racing. It drove even the ones who were there just to hang out away. No longer do big crowds of car enthusiasts hang out in parking lots every Friday and Saturday night. In Columbus Ohio there used to be 200-300 cars show up on the weekend nights. Probably 70% of the cars were riced out.  Now most enthusiasts only go to organized car shows during the day. Or they actually use their cars for events like autocrossing and drag racing. I still like to go out cruising when the weather is nice and I come across very few riced out cars. It seems most have changed to a more understated look with an emphasis on performance. I see more cars with turbos and superchargers than giant wings now. The flashy show-only mods seem to have fallen out of favor with even the young crowd. I think even the people driving ricey cars don’t even want that junk on their car anymore. I think most now buy it like that or go through a brief ricer phase like I did.

For my first car I ended up getting a Pontiac Grand Am. Not really the type of car you can modify or even rice out. I still got a tasteful wing (well I thought it was tasteful at the time) and 18″ wheels. After adding some lowering springs, my focused soon turned to making more horsepower than the looks of the car. I designed and built a custom turbo kit with all the spare money I made from my job. This led to the career I have now. It was really a huge waste of time, but I learned a lot. Still there is a part of me that has always wished I could have gotten that Civic SI. It’s probably a good think I didn’t since I would have ruined a great car. I got my first taste of modifying a car with some potential when I purchased a MKIII Supra Turbo and never looked back.

Where do you think all the ricers have gone? Is it where I live? Are they even gone at all?

Tags: Barrett-Jackson, Fast & Furious, Honda Civic Si, Muscle car, Rice burner, ricer