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The Globe & Mail and GGBailey.com Custom Car Floor Mats.
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How much do I
hate my new
Honda Pilot? Let
me count the ways. |
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My car is so grey and gormless I can't find it in a parking lot. When I
drive it I feel like a nun. Thanks to all the clever features that so
charmed my sensible husband — big enough for all of us yet smaller than
a Yukon? Check. Drives like a sedan but with four-wheel drive? Check.
Transforms with ase from an SUV into a sort of multi-passenger minibus?
Check. Not to mention the excellent sticker price — I am now the chief
pilot of the world's most boring ride. Being essentially superficial, however, my biggest issue is in the looks
department. This car is suffering from such an advanced case of
style-lessness that it seems to be rejecting style altogether. If one's
choice of car is supposed to reflect their personality, this particular
ride has got me all wrong. Which is why I have decided to take a page
from the rap stars and the cable channels and Pimp my Pilot.
For those who may have missed my favourite TV
show, “pimping” is what MTV does every week to some lucky viewer's rust
bucket. With the pierced and tattooed crew at West Coast Custom in
downtown L.A., the oddly engaging rapper host Exzibit transforms
beaters into sweet rides that reflect the owners' uniqueness: A surfer
dude's rusted-out pickup is revealed as a fantasy dune buggy amped with
all variety of DVDs, PlayStations and megawatts of surround sound. The
seriously vintage Cadillac of a teenaged girl called Nile becomes a
gleaming lipstick red dream car, tricked-out with a flowing Lucite
back-seat “stream” (a play on her name), and an automatic shoe rack.
Sound like a hip-hop video fantasy? Perhaps. But
while rap-style bling for the body may be on its way out, car
customization is happening, big-time — and on some surprisingly
ordinary vehicles. Thanks to Pimp My Ride and similarly popular
offshoots such as TLC's Overhaulin' and Orange County Choppers, as well
as slick new car magazines such as Celebrity Car and Rides (“The Illest
Car Magazine Ever!”), custom car body shops are now hopping with soccer
moms in Dodge Caravans and Chevy Novas — and me in my Pilot — rolling
in for the celebrity treatment.
According to the U.S.-based Specialty Equipment
Market Association, annual spending in that country alone on
after-market car parts and accessories has doubled over the past decade
to become a $28.9-billion-a-year industry. One can conclude that number
represents a significantly broader population than those employed by
either
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