The sport compact performance movement owes a debt of gratitude to the 1990s. It’s the decade where the genre experienced its most significant growth spurt and, for better or worse, spawned all sorts of trends you wished you’d never been guilty of. Fortunately, not all trends last.
1. COIL CHOPPING
Adjustable coilovers were still a thing of the future but you were determined to dump your Civic more than what those yellow Neuspeed Race springs said you could. Lopping off a coil or two with your dad’s miter saw made quick work of all of this and also destroyed an otherwise perfectly well-handling car and your dad’s saw in the process. (Hey, wait a minute, I did this. - JW)
2. THE SIX-INCH TIP
An exhaust outlet any bigger than whatever size piping spanned underneath your Integra made no difference to your engine so long as it wasn’t any smaller. But that didn’t stop you from getting your hands on the biggest rolled-chrome-tipped hunk of steel you could find and having it booger-welded onto your Ultra-Flo muffler.
3. THE RACING STRIPE
You didn’t race, and that included every time you mashed the pedal on your naturally aspirated Eclipse, unbeknownst to the guy next to you in the Camaro. But none of that kept you from advertising to the rest of the world whatever boy-racer fantasies you kept pent up inside of you in the form of three-inch-wide vinyl spanning from the muffler to front grille.
4. THE CHICKEN-WIRE GRILLE
Speaking of grilles. You weren’t about to stuff anything billet and chrome in between your Accord’s headlights, which led to the next most logical thing to do: Visit Home Depot, lay down two bucks for a sheet of chicken wire (or stucco lathe), lop it up and Bondo it to the innards of that front bumper opening. As it turns out, chicken wire grilles looked exactly as good as you think they would.
5. TAILLIGHT SILHOUETTES
As far as you were concerned, Honda’s, Acura’s, Toyota’s, Mitsubishi’s, Nissan’s and Mazda’s designers and engineers simply couldn’t get that whole taillight thing down right and, as it turned out, you could do a whole lot better. All it took was some leftover vinyl from that racing stripe, a razor blade and a loon like you with too much time on his hands.
6. APC
Once trinket-makers like APC came onto the scene, the taillight silhouette guy was out of work. Suddenly, these awful-looking abominations of amber and clear plastic reminiscent of office building fluorescent light covers could be yours for a whole lot less work.
7. MADE IN CHINA
Modifying a Honda, for example, in the 1990s in a serious sort of way required serious money. But you didn’t have serious money. Most anything that worked or looked decent came by way of Japan, which meant all of this cost a whole lot more than a homemade racing stripe. And then came China, who teamed up with American entrepreneurs who began cranking out poor-fitting, untested parts, hawking them off to the masses.
8. PLEATHER
You couldn’t take in a two-toned, choose your own color scheme, fake-leather interior in the 1990s and not feel good inside. It was like seeing a rainbow. The key here was to lather everything in it, though, and if it couldn’t be draped in it, a can of Krylon would be called upon.
9. AMERICAN PARTS MAKERS TRYING NOT TO BE AMERICAN
American aftermarket parts makers thought 1990s’ sport compact enthusiasts wouldn’t be interested in parts offered by the same guys who pushed double-pumper carbs and points ignitions and they were right. What they were wrong about, though, was trying to sub-brand themselves using Japanese-sounding names and tag-lines that, as it turned out, either sounded A.) borderline racist or B.) weren’t Japanese at all.
10. SUPRA HEADLIGHTS WITHOUT THE SUPRA
Almost every sport compact enthusiast of the 1990s wanted Toyota’s prized Supra. The aftermarket wing industry was evidence of as much. What those enthusiasts could afford, though, were the Supra’s headlights (or its taillights), and a few bucks left over to pay some body shop schmuck to shoddily graft them onto the front of their CRX and look precisely as good as you think they did.
11. DOUBLE-DECKER WINGS
All of a sudden those Supra wings weren’t big enough, which led to the next most logical thing: a Supra wing on top of a Supra wing. Double-decker spoilers epitomized everything that went wrong with the sport compact segment all rolled up into one big hunk of poorly fitting fiberglass that, a lot of times, wasn’t so much as double-sided taped onto the trunk lid.
12. TACHS ON TACHS
It didn’t matter that your Civic’s tachometer worked just fine and that you had no trouble being able to see it, but you went ahead and plopped a five-inch monster tach with its requisite shift lift front and center onto your dashboard anyways. Set to light up in your face at 3,500 rpm. (This, too. - JW)
13. THE UNI-WIPER
You had no idea why you had to ditch one of your perfectly good windshield wipers (it was popular among European touring cars of its day, you know). All you knew was that it had to be done in order to complement that boy-racer theme you’d worked so hard to establish. (And this... - JW)
14. COMBAT BODY KITS
By the time the late-1990s happened, no factory body panel was safe. Bumpers, side skirts, fenders and hoods were tossed in favor of the Black Widow, the Commando or the Enforcer, all of which looked and fit every bit as bad as they sounded.
15. HEADER, EXHAUST, BUT NO INTAKE
Japanese parts had been a staple of well-built sport compact cars long before the now wholly abused term “JDM” was established, which ushered in an era of copying the Japanese for the sake of copying the Japanese, for better or worse. Worse, as in performing an engine swap, bolting on a better-flowing header and exhaust system, and then restricting it all with your old factory air box because you saw a guy in Option magazine do it. (I still rock a stock intake box in my Civic! - JW)