About 6 years ago the “Hellaflush” or “Stance” movement began to gain momentum as it hit the states like wildfire burning in a dry mountain canyon road. It was something fresh and original that many tuners had never seen before stateside. It was something we were still trying to figure out how to do as a community. I remember quotes like “Offset is Everything” turning into “Width is everything” and evolving now even more so. Back then the pioneers lead the way by experimenting with different sizes, widths, stretches, and fender modifications to craft the way for the follower enthusiast. There was no one to ask how to do things, we did the brainstorming and work ourselves and now the legit pioneers can break down stance to simple mathematical calculations.
Thing is though, since this movement began it’s difficult to find tuners now that do anything but just stance to their cars. Now I am guilty of slamming my 91′ SW20 MR2 on a set of 17×9+6 and 18×10.5 Enkei RPF1’s myself, but that was the last mod on my car. I had custom fabricated splitters for the whole car, retrofitted audi parts into my car, and came up with ways to wire tuck and mod the engine bay myself. I use to love stance, but when I come across a stock car plastered with ILLEST, FATLACE, and HELLAFLUSH stickers over the window with stretched tires at stock height I feel this scene has become oversaturated with fanboy followers.
I mean, when did my passion become a fanboys introduction to cars? Could it be that as I am getting older I am becoming more of a purist with my builds? Walking across car shows for the past years I’ve come across stance after stance after stance and little to no creativity in builds. People simply come across things they see on the internet and ask how they can replicate it by finding out their offsets/sizes or how they made a certain diffuser from another car fit on theirs.
I remember a day when we weren’t so simply stunned by only a cars wheels, but sat and stared with a glare locked into the soul of a car as it held an expression for what the driver wanted to present. A car serves as your avatar on the road, no one sees each others bodies, faces, arms, legs, but only their cars and it speaks to you about the driver. In our world our cars are our identity, just think how many people you know by their cars and not their name. 
Now it seems as though the standard is simply stance. And while I have nothing against stance in particular, I feel as though its a trend that has lost it’s purity and effect when it has become an easy means for attention, glamour, and instagram likes. I guess it’s something that comes hand in hand with the “show” community of the car scene. I find it funny when people do things to their cars simply to win shows and satisfy judges. Personally if it’s my car I am going to do it to satisfy my own cravings and not mold it into what the majority of society see’s fit.
Which is why I havn’t taken a stand to machine gun my camera at events and capture every slammed car I see, but rather ones that really stuck out as unique to me such as this BOSO styled Cressida. The car itself is a classic platform that is difficult to find and I’m sure the parts aren’t regularly available on the internet and shipped to your door in 3-5 business days. It’s that pure guilty feeling of wanting to pursue, fabricate, and build something with your bare hands that get’s me going.
Another prime example is this “POLIZEI” themed E46. With the exaggerated widebody fenders and huge time attack wing it screams the same punk ass attitude hot rodders had back in the 50’s when they first began breaking the mold on cars with last generations affordable car.
Just like this S14 encapturing you with it’s peculiar color code. It’s not exactly a happy, warm, pleasent green, but rather poopy colored actually. And while part of you clenches the other part of you can’t stand to not look away and as you approach closer you notice a pearl coat covering it’s majesty. It’s details come not only in the pearl, but in smaller things such as the screws that hold the vents down which had to be custom cut to fit.
Who know’s maybe I’m just getting old and tired of fan boys entering the car scene knowing nothing and grasping the first ILLEST stickers they can find. Stance is nothing new, it’s been in play for decades and started out in the EURO scene way before the imports ever saw it. It ventured on into BIPPU in Japan and finally hit stateside and now finally the 15 year old kids who simply want to look cool and show off their cars to their friends like a fresh pair of Nike’s. What’s your opinion? What do you think? Is stance here to stay or is it another fad like neon lights, underglow, and bright decals in the year 2001?
Article gets you thinking. The way I see it, the whole car scene just evolves. As trends come they go something new sparks ups and then it goes.
You are correct my friend I totally understand where you’re coming from ,like I always say be creative and be different don’t copy someone’s car on the internet, do crazy shit to your car even if u haven’t seen it been done, just gotta say f*ck it! I would love for you to check out my car , it’s a slammed 99 saturn coupe , check it out in instagram my name is. Slammed_satty , hope to hear from ya !
stance is here to stay. nobody is going to go back to sunk wheels.. well atleast i never would. there are already different variations as well, track stance, flush, meaty etc…
what does ruin it tho is the fanboys/stock cars with hellaflush stickers.. smh
I don’t think it’ll die I think it’ll merge into something else, just like everything else in time. History repeats itself every ten years and adapts. But no matter what kind of vehicle or type of car scene. Beauty is beauty and you can’t deny the work of a true enthusiast.
Stance has been around in japan since the 70’s its not going anywhere.
Wow, you’ve typed my own thoughts! Spot on review and analysis, luckily there will always be a group of people including myself that will apply personality to cars. The key thing is that these unique cars get the opportunity to be viewed at shows and in the media
Great Article!!! I came up into the import scene in the late 90’s and back then and in the early 2000’s, people would customize their cars with various parts and swaps. While many are not as great and now get “ricer” comments, I have always felt that if you build a car, build it to be yours and unique. Many of those customized cars back then to me were works of art.
It’s a fad for sure. When people finally realize that spending money on making cars less practical so they can look like hotshots at shows they will start to find some newer upcoming fad… In 20 years we will look back and laugh and say “what were we thinking”