Bold looks or sleeper?, Which do you prefer? Options

[blu94gt]

So a buddy and I were having a somewhat heated discussion of what he should do with his G35 and it pretty much came down to this: when building your car, would you rather give it bold looks (body kit, rims, etc) and sacrifice some performance or make the car a sleeper (all performance, pretty much stock looks). This can apply to any kind of car/bike, not just Celicas.

I personally prefer the sleeper. Get a good quiet exhaust, suspension setup, keep stock rims with some good tires, do whatever to the motor you want to do, and blow the doors off any un-suspecting opponent.

My favorite sleeper I've come across was an old POS VW hatch. It was an 80's something, brown and rusty, sounded like ****, running on steelies. He blew the doors off my Mustang, and my friend and I were just like "wtf." Turns out he pretty much had a swap from a newer VW GTi with a bigger turbo, downpipe, engine management, etc and had drilled a bunch of holes in the muffler and exhaust to make it sound like he was just running with an old rusty exhaust.

[96bluevert]

That's really just a personaly preference. Normally, the performance upgrades will cost you more than styling. But lots of people will do crazy engine swaps to thier beater grocery getters that wind up being pretty BA.

[jcaron9gt4]

I don't like either. I prefer a nicely built car that has function as well as form.

[lagos]

If the car is a POS that goes fast, then make it a sleeper.
Something like a g35 already has bold looks, and that would be accented in a tasteful way.

[Akirad1]

sleepers are cool. but like jcaron said i like functionality and form. why have something that looks like it has 1000 hp, when it only has 100.

[xs94st]

Sleeper all the way. The only thing that shouldn't be kept stock exterior wise would be the rims. I had a dream of breathing life into an 87 Subaru GL Wagon AWD..crap car but would be funny to see it haul arse on the street.

[blu94gt]

sleepers are cool. but like jcaron said i like functionality and form. why have something that looks like it has 1000 hp, when it only has 100.

I agree on that note, there are so many body-kitted cars both on this site and around town that have nothing done for performance at all. If you're going to put all the work into a kit like that, give the car some performance to match. That huge wing and aero-bumper set won't do you any good other than looking stupid.

And to be a sleeper it doesn't have to be a POS, but like in the case of my buddy's G35 he has 20's on it, if he were to do say a turbo setup or something with a quiet exhaust, there's still nothing that would distinguish it from any other G35 coupe on the road until he flew away.

[jcaron9gt4]

It's dependent on the car I think. With a G35, you can do exterior mods, yet still have the power to back it up with it still being stock. For our cars, if you do all visual mods, that's all it is...all show and no go.

This post has been edited by jcaron9gt4: Feb 26, 2009 - 3:05 PM

[Akirad1]

from what i understand the meaning of a sleeper is, something that appears to be stock or doesnt seem to have any performance mods on it. and the only way you would know is by looking under the hood or getting blown away by it.

[Consynx]

Sleeper is fun, but it gets real old having everyone try to run ya.

I mean, if you go sleeper you CAN go all out, by not having a full exhaust, etc...that really hides everything, but my 3" exhaust kept getting me into low-mpg runs.
Now that i'm adding flash effect, i'm expecting to only be challenged by fools or people who are fairly quick. . .

[Random_Stranger]

I prefer the bold look, because I get the attention of what I want to impress........... Ladies.


With me, it is all about float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. Who can't respect the Rose with Thorns? You know what I mean?

This post has been edited by Random_Stranger: Feb 26, 2009 - 3:52 PM

[playr158]

I prefer the bold look, because I get the attention of what I want to impress........... Ladies.

LOL


KISS- Keep it simple stupid; most "bold" looks out there look like crap
simple clean and functional

[95CelicaST]

When I owned a celica I was into bold, but bold gets you the wrong attention. Now with my WRX I am going sleeper- because its too expensive to get tickets. Plus most police will ticket a flashy ricer over someone who has a sleeper. I had a Greddy Ti-C catback, but it was too flashy for me. Sold it for an oem-look 3" vibrant catback. Looking at coilovers next and sway bars. Give it a subtle (legal) tint and call it good for now.

[jcaron9gt4]

Does WRX and sleeper go together lol?

[richee3]

Sleeper. Hands down. No matter what car it is, a sleeper is always better than a ricer. Just my opinion though.

[Stambo]

For example i'm planning to just patch my exterior rust, smooth it all down and repaint. Then save for a 4agze swap and see where i go from there. The most i would do would just get splitters and oem sides.

I think nothing looks amazing as a nice clean car with a quick engine.

[Malek]

YESS! I love this question!! I used to have a real flashy car (below) ...spent 2 summers bringing it to life from its once totalled condition. Drove it less than 2 months before i hated it. So I sold it for double to some stupid rich teenager (I'm 16 btw ). And I bought a celi. I love it because its so subtle. I wish to keep it this way Sleeper FTW!!

[blu94gt]

When I owned a celica I was into bold, but bold gets you the wrong attention. Now with my WRX I am going sleeper- because its too expensive to get tickets. Plus most police will ticket a flashy ricer over someone who has a sleeper. I had a Greddy Ti-C catback, but it was too flashy for me. Sold it for an oem-look 3" vibrant catback. Looking at coilovers next and sway bars. Give it a subtle (legal) tint and call it good for now.

It's amazing how attention can change with WRX's. When I had my 02 I bought it with 18" wheels, 3" turbo-back exhaust, TurboXS RFL blowoff, etc etc. It was fun, but it was loud, caught attention of racers and cops, etc. I bought a UTEC tuner for it, put the stock exhaust back on and did a Stage1 flash so it was pushing more power than it was with the exhaust. Ditched the blowoff valve and had a sweet car that would stomp another factory WRX.

I'd recommend some strut-tower bars for the WRX, they actually made a very noticeable difference on mine. Plus I got the front and rear for $20 total lol.

[Fastbird]

I like a good combination of both. Certain aesthetically pleasing mods that might be considered bolt looks, like wheels, tint, touch of paint here or there on certain vehicles, that are typical mods, but I much prefer the go fast stuff. I just can't leave it stock on the outside though.

[92-gt]

I like a nice combination.

I like the car to have a nice CLEAN exterior. Including a nice set of wheels(nothing to flashy, just nice looking) along with a nicely done exterior(for example, my 5th gen, it has a Carlos sainz front bumper, and other subtle mods).

But I also like to keep the exterior from being too flashy, and add some performance to it.

I dont like to go too far with performance though because I want the reliability factor.