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http://riceornot.ricecop.com/?auto=61316 |
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Comments: 4 (Read/Post) Favorites: 0 (View) |
Submitted
on: 03-05-2007
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Category:
Car |
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Description:
Dastun F10 with wing. |
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#3 |
3-05-2007 @ 06:13:16 PM |
Posted By : Adambomb |
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#2, 1st page (couldn't get the 2nd) :(
Old-school hot-rodder pimps ride with satire
Vern Cox opens the hatchback of his 1978 Datsun F10, a work in progress. (Liz Kishimoto The Spokesman-Review )
Tom Lutey
Staff writer
July 24, 2006
We've all seen it, been stuck next to it at a stoplight as its throbbing bass wears on our peace of mind like an abscessed tooth – a subcompact car with the brilliant colors of a betta fish and flippers to match.
The sneaker-like branding on the rear window reads "No Fear," but all that comes to mind is "no manners," or "no clue," as the traffic light turns green and the tiny car speeds away, its throaty exhaust pipe groaning like a sink disposal that's swallowed a tray of silverware.
The spectacle used to baffle 52-year-old Vern Cox, an old-school hot-rodder who believes what's under a car's hood is more important than what's reflected in its paint or thudding on its stereo. Motors take a back seat in modern car culture to wheel covers, whale tails and decorative lighting, which do little or nothing to improve a car's performance.
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Few people hot rod anymore; they "pimp," a teen culture term that reflects a desired flamboyance and even tackiness found in rap music. Rappers borrowed the garish style from managers of the sex trade.
For $350, Cox bought a 1978 Datsun F10 a few years ago and set out to out-pimp the pimpers. But the Spokane Valley man is pimping his ride home-style. From hood emblem to taillight, the car is now pimped out with household items.
"Just about everything the boys do with their cars, I try to make for mine," Cox said.
Cox's tailpipe sports not one but six economy-size coffee cans, which telescope stogie-fashion beyond the lower lip of his rear bumper. His rear spoiler is constructed of plywood. The hood scoop on the front of his ride is an old Spokane Chronicle newspaper box donated by a local muffler shop. His "body kit" – a term that describes the skirting used to make a car appear as if it's hugging the road – consists of coffee tins, flattened out and screwed to the Datsun's sides.
Cox even has two bleach bottles mounted to the F10's trunk and rigged with valves and hose tubing. The setup is a spoof on the nitrous oxide systems used by import car racers to give their cars a boost in acceleration.
"After I put the can on the tailpipe and then built the wing, I started seeing the phone cameras come out in my rear view mirror wherever I stopped," Cox said. "I had a guy in a semi get out and take a picture."
Just as photogenic as the pimped-out F10 is Cox, whose tattooed frame tips the scales at more than 250 pounds. He sports a medium-length beard braided with red, white and blue beads to make an American flag pattern. His dachshund-poodle cross usually rides shotgun.
Occasionally, Cox is challenged to a race. The retired Kaiser Aluminum employee is aware that not all pimped-out rides lack mechanical improvements. He pushed his little car to 100 mph on the freeway once only to have his doors blown away by a pimped-out ride. But most pimped-out cars are just for show.
You can tell a modern-day hot-rodder from someone who merely pimped out their ride by looking at their fingernails, Cox said. A set of black, cracked nails and scraped fingers hanging from a car's steering wheel indicates to Cox that the driver has been under the hood.
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