Behold my good friend Shavi's Mazda Mazdaspeed 3
Notice how the wheels are as close as they can possibly be to the arches of the fenders? Thats "hellaflush." When the wheels are "flush" with the fenders.
So why do this? Well why the fuck not? It looks absolutely badass. When people first encounter these hellaflush-themed cars and after the awe-factor wears out and people pick their jaws up off the ground, they usually follow up with the question, "How the hell do you drive around?"
Well, here is where the issue lies. The hellaflush movement since the very beginning has received a ton of flack because many feel that by lowering a car to such a degree in order to achieve the hellaflush look, the car loses its purpose and all of its functionality. Lowering a car to such dramatic levels causes a car to handle much worse than stock as the suspension geometry is thrown completely out of wack. In addition, driving so low puts the vehicle's oilpan as well as other vital components dangerously close to the ground. To put it in perspective, Shavi has to time his lane changes because his car is so low that it hits the orange reflectors that separate the lanes. And his car has fell victim to a busted oilpan many times over.. I know because I had to help him fix it once, but anyways, back to the debate; form versus function.
So with hellaflush clearly being the formalist side as the car is built for purely aesthetics, let's move onto function. I like to consider the functionalists more traditional or "purist" when it comes to building cars. Functionalists build their cars to function.. I know this sounds obvious but in other words, they would never modify the car in any way that would decrease its performance capabilities. To functionalists, a car must do its job and the best way to modify a car is to install parts on it and to tune it to help perform its jobs and duties better. Pure performance is the goal and performance must be realized in any situation whether on the street or the racetrack.
Functionalists being the purists claim that when people buy high performance vehicles such as the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution for example and then slam the "Evo" straight to the ground, that it defeats the purpose of owning that vehicle. That all the "high-performance" characteristics are no longer usable. This is quite true but, it is up to the owner on how they should modify their own vehicle. People have different purposes for their cars and buy cars for different reasons. They shouldn't be put down because of how they choose to modify and build off of their vehicles. I know it seems like I'm bagging on the functionalists hardcore but formalists rag on the functionalists pretty hard too. Functional cars typically in terms of ride height are higher than hellaflush cars and may not look as "cool" since nowadays the trend is that the lower a car is, the cooler. So formalists always poke fun at functional cars and their owners by saying that they are too high and ugly and that they need "moar low." But, the ride height on functional cars isn't set based on aesthetics, its rather for proper suspension geometry and for better cornering abilities.
The definition of an automobile from dictionary.com is: "a passenger vehicle designed for operation on ordinary roads and typically having four wheels and a gasoline or diesel internal-combustion engine." As car-enthusiasts, I don't think we should go at each others throats defining what the definition and meaning of a car is. From my understanding, a hellaflush car is still a car because it still has four wheels, can operate on ordinary roads..ish and has an engine. It is no less of a car because of how someone chose to build their car. And a functional car is still a car also going along the lines of that logic. We shouldn't define for each other what our cars should be.
I'm not going to choose sides in this debate of form vs. function, this isn't what this blog post is about. If you're looking for that, go to any car enthusiast form and there will for sure be a debate about this issue with people getting heated about which side they support. But, this is the beauty of it all. Dialogue like this SHOULD exist for the community because when it comes down to it, we are ALL car enthusiasts. We are PASSIONATE about our cars and with passion comes opinions and those opinions shouldn't be stifled. However, as a community we SHOULD become more open-minded and accept people's viewpoints and actions regarding what they do to their own vehicles.
As car enthusiasts, we build our cars to our own liking. Well, at least that's how I feel. People need to have more fun with their cars. That doesn't necessarily mean they need to drive their cars more, it just means that they need to justify their own definition of "fun." They need to build their cars for themselves. At the end of the day, there is nothing more rewarding than stepping back a few feet and just admiring the work you've put into your own vehicle. That sense of pride, accomplishment, fulfillment, and passion. It doesn't matter what you do to your car. Whether you slam it down to the ground, or you have it setup perfectly to tackle the race tracks, you need to feel that happiness and pride for cars. That feeling is what makes us car enthusiasts.
I remember watching an interview of professional Formula Drift driver Ross Petty a couple years back as he was elaborating on a new Nissan Silvia S15 drift car he had just built for competition. He mentioned that all the competitors in the drift series have been building super competitive drift cars by stripping everything out of their cars effectively lightening them and pretty much building them to function and perform at the best of their abilities. However, with his new car that he just built, he went against the grain. "I left all my interior inside, the car still has an audio system, air conditioning, everything, its pretty much a street car. Its heavier than my old car for sure. I don't know why, but this just feels better," Petty said.
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