"Euro Look" - Considered Chavvy?

[williamp]

I can imagine the post on the other forums:

"Quick! Someone is questioning our stretched tyres and whether they are dangerous/bad for driving/make the car look silly/all three, and why it only happens on Volkswagens. If we post enough defending them, they will shut up. To the Internet!"

I still think they are dangerous. I still think they look stupid. Regardless of whethetr they are illegal or not (it would need to be a test case- you would not specifically make it illegal to stretch the tyre over a larger rim...)

[mackie1]

I'm curious if anyone with extremely stretched tyres has successfully made an at fault claim from their insurance. Do people specifically declare it or just say "after market wheels" and be done with it?

[TJW]

williamp said:

thirteen-o-two said:

dincee said:

One word CHAV

Fantastic in depth response.

One word - guess what it is - it begins with the same letter

"Correct"?????

No I think the word is "C U Next Tuesday"

[oldirtybastard]

Hiya,

Can anyone add up there non Dub pics please.

Wouldnt mind knowing what you Non-Dub guys drive.

Cheers
T

[oldirtybastard]

Simon Sweetland said:

Ding Dong!! Shame you are breaking this..

T

[depresion]

Esprit said:

depresion said:

aka_kerrly said:

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=2234638

some information about stretched tires for the less informed on this thread who seem to be posting large amounts of crap.

Better yet you could pick up a copy of "The Racing & High-Performance Tire" by Paul Haney published by the SAE apart from being a fantastic source of information about the spring and damping rates of tyres it details his work in the mid 60's with the Lola T70 with Firestone tyres: "So Firestone told us there tire was built to run on a 7-inch wide rim. I had built some modular wheels and we could vary the width by what mid-section parts we used. We'd run the tires they gave us on a 7-inch rim and maybe an 8 and a 9 too. The wider rims made the sidewalls stiffer and instead of running a 0.95 average G you'd rin a 0.99. So of course we put them on 9-inch rims."

Stretching tyres isn't new and it's been used in racing at least since 1965, I can't see a Golf putting anything like the same loads through it's tyres as a T70.

WRONG WRONG WRONG

Have you read the book?

Do you think I'm going to take the word of a forum jocky over someone with his experience and qualifications? if you intend to live your life in ignorance then feel free just don't spread it round.

[AngryS3Owner]

oldirtybd said:

Wouldnt mind knowing what you Non-Dub guys drive.

If you mean us folks that think the euro look is ste, then I think most of us have our cars in our profiles.

Here's a pic of mine:

[bales]

Jimmy B said:

Well here is mine to add to the pot...(now sold, a couple of months ago).

I have been taking this car along to plenty of Pistonheads meets, and runs. I have always has a fantastic response. Amongst lots of other fantastic metal it seems to strike a chord with people, whether it takes people back to their earlier days of motoring or they just admire it for what it is I don't know. Either way I have had some fantastic comments from owners of far more serious machines.

Of course I aspire to progress to some serious German cars but you have to work with what you have and within your budget. There are plenty of young guys in the UK VW scene who are tinkering about mechanically and styling these old veedubs. Some results are fantastic, others controversial, but the main thing is that they're doing it. Getting stuck in and teaching themselves a thing of two about engines, body restoration and geometry.

Enjoy,

James.

That golf is stunning, I do think it is funny though that everytime anyone has posted a picture of a golf looking like this or any really well done examples, nearly everyone has said how nice a car it is. Yet for some reason there still seems to be this opinion from some of the guys off E38 that everyone on PH hates all modified cars.

I personally dont think you can get much better than a mk2 smoothed sat on BBS splitties on its arse! Though I would have single headlamps, not rallye front end!

[damci]

oldirtybd said:

Hiya,

Can anyone add up there non Dub pics please.

Wouldnt mind knowing what you Non-Dub guys drive.

Cheers
T

There’s no photos (unless you click on the profiles) but this link http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0... shows what some PH'ers drive. Also have a look in the Readers Cars section.

[Davi]

depresion said:

Esprit said:

depresion said:

aka_kerrly said:

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=2234638

some information about stretched tires for the less informed on this thread who seem to be posting large amounts of crap.

Better yet you could pick up a copy of "The Racing & High-Performance Tire" by Paul Haney published by the SAE apart from being a fantastic source of information about the spring and damping rates of tyres it details his work in the mid 60's with the Lola T70 with Firestone tyres: "So Firestone told us there tire was built to run on a 7-inch wide rim. I had built some modular wheels and we could vary the width by what mid-section parts we used. We'd run the tires they gave us on a 7-inch rim and maybe an 8 and a 9 too. The wider rims made the sidewalls stiffer and instead of running a 0.95 average G you'd rin a 0.99. So of course we put them on 9-inch rims."

Stretching tyres isn't new and it's been used in racing at least since 1965, I can't see a Golf putting anything like the same loads through it's tyres as a T70.

WRONG WRONG WRONG

Have you read the book?

Do you think I'm going to take the word of a forum jocky over someone with his experience and qualifications? if you intend to live your life in ignorance then feel free just don't spread it round.

I haven't read that specific book, but I think esprit might be alluding to the fact that Firestone didn't introduce radial tyres until the very late 60's as they were slow off the mark responding to Michelins release of same ('66?), therefore reference to the Firestones being run stretched in the mid 60's would refer to cross-plys.

Feel free to correct me, I'm not being a forum jockey, just pointing out where Esprit is likely coming from - if it specifically mentions radials in reference to the mid 60s Firestone experiments in his book I'd like to read it

[Evilbat]

Well I don't mind posting up my non-Euro look...

[mechsympathy]

oldirtybd said:

Hiya,

Can anyone add up there non Dub pics please.

Wouldnt mind knowing what you Non-Dub guys drive.

Cheers
T

Here's a video of my sensible family estate car

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQOlGryDcJs

[BlueEyedBoy]

I think the main issue here is that most people on this forum, think all the cars posted would look a lot better on bigger rims (not wider) and slightly raised suspension. Most of the cars (metal) actually look good.

Would it not be a better look to flair the arches, and blend them him, and then been able to put on the wider rims, rather than creating a poorer handling car, and I know people defend this, but this can be the only outcome after this mod.

Edited by BlueEyedBoy on Thursday 5th June 11:37

[carl_w]

BlueEyedBoy said:

Would it not be a better look to flair the arches, and blend them him, and then been able to put on the wider rims, rather than creating a poorer handling car, and I know people defend this, but this can be the only outcome after this mod.

I'd like to know this too. TBH when I saw the orange car with green wheels, I assumed the lack of paint around the rear arch was preparation for some extended arches, but apparently not. Extended arches can look crap, but not as crap as those stretched tyres. I'm sure you could make it work.

PS: I really love the bodywork on most of these cars, and the less extreme wheels. The blue Mk2 golf on this page is

Edited by carl_w on Thursday 5th June 11:50

[LiL ShuteS]

thats where the arches had been flared, was before preparation for paint!

thats the finished article with the arches!

[stew-S160]

LiL ShuteS said:

thats where the arches had been flared, was before preparation for paint!

thats the finished article with the arches!

looks utterly stupid. id actually be laughing my ass off if i saw that car in real life.


euro look makes me think= short, fat, dumpy kid who was never good at anything.

[Evilbat]

stew-s160 Nooo ! The Euro look is actually about bling chrome wheels and low-riders. Don't get the over-stretched tyres on small wheels fad confused with it. There are some very well executed Euro look cars out there that do not deserve comparison.

Think your dumpy fat kid reference is a bit unkind too.

IIRC the sretched tyre craze came out of the US anyway when they put bike tyres on the wheels of "hot rods".

Edited by Evilbat on Thursday 5th June 12:57

[stew-S160]

Evilbat said:

stew-s160 Nooo ! The Euro look is actually about bling chrome wheels and low-riders. Don't get the over-stretched tyres on small wheels fad confused with it. There are some very well executed Euro look cars out there that do not deserve comparison.

Think your dumpy fat kid reference is a bit unkind too.

IIRC the sretched tyre craze came out of the US anyway when they put bike tyres on the wheels of "hot rods".

Edited by Evilbat on Thursday 5th June 12:57

unkind or not, its my opinion and im sticking with it.

[Road_Terrorist]

Euro look is almost the antithesis of what most would consider the 'chav' look of ever excessive, more complicated body kits, crazy paint schemes and ever taller, more blingish wheels. Euro looks is more about leaving the body as it is, just cleaning it up a bit, even taking away to get a smoother, less cluttered look, whereas the max power way is more like adding more and more clutter to the car.

Euro look essentially grew out of the '80s motorsport look, hence the wide, dished BBS style wheels and sometimes wide arches, but minimal spoilers, much like this typical '80s 635 racecar.


Many 80s German cars (especially BMW & VW) came with a similar look from the factory, albeit a bit more conservative. Even to this day the dished, chrome bbs wheels are a signature of many german tuners and it's why it's called the 'Euro' look. Some people take it to extremes but you always get that whether over the top body kits, over the top power or over the top stretched wheels.

All you really need for the euro look is a nice set of chromed, dished BBS, lowered car and clean, simple paint, no crazy bodykits.

here are some non VW (mostly BMW) examples.































I have always considered the above examples to be the typical 'euro' look, minimal body mods, wide, deep dish chrome (mostly BBS/Borbet etc) wheels and lowered, and certainly within the BMW community this is what is usually considered to be 'euro look'.

However over the past few years there seems an increasingly seperate trend veering off that is almost comically small wheels that are as wide as they are tall and are mainly seen on VW Golfs or other small hatchbacks. Although many people still call this euro look, it seems to me to be more and more a copy of the crazy Japanese Bosozoku style cars, although without the more bizarre body addons.

examples of bosozoku for those who don't know

[alwayzsidewayz]

My non euro look car.






Modified for performance gains, although I did choose the white indicators because I liked them! no other reason.