When the three anthracite-black BMWs pulled up to the square behind Pribaltiyskaya, everything around them was covered in the dense fog that had come out of nowhere on a spring day on the shore of the Gulf of Finland. Menacing-looking tinted cars were parked almost in the same spot where the career of Danila Bagrov, a positive assassin, had once begun with the phrase “Hello, bandits!
Journalists, by virtue of their profession, are generally not prone to over-impressiveness. That’s what we thought until we were invited to look at three very low-budget tuned BMWs, which changed our idea of car styling and our own ability to be amazed.
When the three anthracite and black BMWs pulled into the square behind Pribaltiyskaya, everything around was covered with the dense fog that I do not know how they appeared on the shore of the Gulf of Finland on a spring day. The formidable-looking tinted cars stood almost in the same spot where the career of Danila Bagrov, a positive assassin, had once begun with the phrase “Hello, bandits!”. However, random passersby, who mistook our cavalcade for a meeting of the heads of local gangs, were mistaken. We only took pictures of cars, which, despite the abundance of criminal connotations in the image, belonged to a man absolutely not connected with the underworld. It was he who offered us a “taste” of his cars and told us about the principles of their refinement.
Way of thinking
According to his views, the starting point of tuning is a choice of car. You can understand a person who, having bought a powerful sedan, drives it in a “civil” mode, speeds up only rarely and does not think about any modifications of the car. The car is necessary for such category of people as a mean of movement from point A to point B, nothing more. However, the one who buys a car with a coupe body knowingly pays more, and not for improved consumer qualities of the car, but for its sports image. This person cares about the appearance of the car he drives, and he will try to make it comply with his advanced concepts of car aesthetics.
BMW owners are luckier than others. Cars with a blue-and-white propeller on the hood not only have great engines, but also initially carry a powerful aesthetic potential, which is fully revealed by various tuning companies. And the question is not about installation of additional accessories (everybody has different views on tuning: someone goes to Hamann or Harge and pays big money for tuning of the car, and for others a pair of cheap blue LEDs in washer lamps is quite enough), but only about elimination of stylistic defects of manufacturers.
Having looked again at the million-dollar black cars standing in a row, we did not enter into an argument about the peculiarities of BMW design, but simply asked to formulate the idea that was the basis for changing the appearance of these beauties.
Racing outside the vertical
The basic attitude is very simple: all vertical lines on the body interfere with the creation of the image of a fast and aggressive car. To change the car’s look, you need to keep only horizontal lines, and eradicate vertical ones if possible. Vertically standing mudguards – out. Then the window bezels and the signature chrome “nostrils,” which are painted in body color. Branded BMW badge, too. Strong toning is obligatory, but not so that invisible passengers could show their tongues with impunity, but for elimination of effect of “gap” in monolithic silhouette of the body, and also to “hide” vertical middle bar.
A very important detail is the optics. Many BMW owners, following the fashion, replace the front headlights with yellow turn indicators with other ones, in which these indicators are white. It is not justified by logic, and as a result of mass enthusiasm of such upgrade white “turn signals” have become not less banal than yellow. It is much more useful to remove “a step”, formed by rear lights and a line of a trunk, having painted the top segments of rear optics, again in body color, and to do the following with the front optics: to install headlights with white “turn signals”, but slightly tint the basic lights.
Decreasing of a clearance affects considerably on external effect of the car. But it is useful not only from the point of view of beauty to “press” the car to the ground with adjustment of sports springs. An important bonus to this procedure will be the improvement of the car grip. With too active driving, with standard suspension (and standard wheels) the rear axle of BMW can sometimes skid even on dry asphalt, and at speeds above 200 km / h such things are not very pleasant.
Also in the list of elimination of disadvantages with a stretch, but you can include installation instead of the trivial exhaust with faceless pipe “can” of good-quality “remus” muffler and, of course, a larger size of branded disks BMW, wide, with low-profile tires.
Status Elements
“Seven” in general is the brightest and most unusual of the whole trio. First, contrary to the laws of genre, it has not automatic, but a manual gearbox. The owner of the car follows an aggressive style of driving, and the “handle” allows the heavy limousine to create such daring maneuvers, which would suit more to “Five” or even “Three” – to cut oncoming traffic, rush through narrow streets or squeal with rubber in turns. Secondly, despite of critically low clearance, besides it is reduced by plastic “skirt” on a forward bumper, the “seven” easily climbs high city curbs and runs down them without the slightest damage (as it turned out, not always – the front “skirt” sometimes must be painted). And thirdly, as we have already mentioned, it has many tuning additions: xenon light, Hamann spoiler on the roof, tuning pedals, air ducts on front wings and shift knob with Hamann logo.
Looking as reduced copy of the “seventh” body, the “fifth” has much less modifications – only plastic linings and Remus, and the “third” can brag of one tuning “male” with a cut out wolf’s head on it. But from the other side, do the details really matter, if any of these cars attracts looks of people around if it appears in the street.
Another strategy
By the end of our photo session, the fog had lifted and the cars had lost their mystical look. Now on the square there were not ghosts of the New Russian era, but beautiful and exclusive cars. The pleasure of driving them is more important for their owner than such trifles, as the negative attitude of acquaintances to the “seven” with a manual gearbox or investments in tuning, which are unlikely to be recouped on sale. Even the fact that we didn’t calculated a trajectory and flew out onto the lawn, having amputated a spoiler of a front bumper with the help of a curb, didn’t grieve the owner. “The pleasure is worth the money,” he said. – The feeling of driving any of these cars pays for any expense on them, including paying force majeure bills. For those for whom saving money is more important than the mass of positive emotions one gets behind the wheel of a truly beautiful car, it is more profitable to drive a cab. But life is one, and is it worth spending it trying to “scrimp”? I don’t think so. Instead of trying to save money, you should try to make more money. I, for example, am going to sell the Seven and buy an M3. Would you feel sorry to part with such a car? It will. But you have to strive for the best.
