Wangan - December 2010

Dardilly, France. 10 pm. Outside temperature: 2°C. A number of cars discreetly make their way to the underground carpark of a supermarket. Slowly but surely, a small crowd gathers. Their common point: they are all driving Japanese cars. 

Undeterred by the cold and the snow, these enthusiasts gather about every two month to talk about cars and show off their prized possession. This December’s meetup had a turn up of about 30 cars, a mere number compared to the 150 attendees of October. Nevertheless, some beautiful cars were present, including a couple of EDM DC2 Integras, a score of Civics from all generations, a certain CRX that will be covered in more details very soon, a Lexus IS200, an Mx-5, and an old Rx-7 FC that had recently been reborn from the grave, and is planned to be given a second youth, from a smoky, rusty car to an Initial D-style beauty.

 

All of these rides are very clean and well kept and sport all levels of mods, from stock to totally illegal modifications by Singaporean (and probably also French standards).

This ground scraping Civic had to have its fenders hand rolled to make room for the rubber, as you can see by the slightly chipped paint along the wheel arch.

One notable thing about French modding is the fact that most of the work is home-made by the drivers, who seek for help and advice from friends or forums, and all of these rides are built with a goal in mind. Few cars are modified just to look good, and while some have fun elements added to give a stronger identity to the car, like the Raving Rabbits DC2, that sports a blue LED-eyed Raving Rabbit hanging under the rear bumper to “scare” followers, and that will soon be equipped with a Raving Rabbit horn tune, most of these Japanese cars are made to tackle small curvy roads and mountain passes and getting the most fun out of it.

Probably every single one of these guys can sit with you for an hour and talk about the modifications they’ve done to their cars, why and how they’ve done it. Likewise, most if not all of these drivers can tell you about all-out driving experiences they’ve lived at the wheel of their beloved cars.

That doesn’t mean of course that all these cars are rat rods; you can see some cars with well maintained looks and bodies, such as the “Christmas wrapped” silver civic or the gorgeous red 200SX.

All in all, it was nice to see how different the car culture has grown in another country, and just shows a different interpretation of the word “modifying”.

A big thanks to Charles Gaillard, Adrien Tomasini, and all the guys from the Wangan Import and Japancar forums for the warm welcome and all your awesome rides!

Here are more pics for you all to enjoy!(click on them to see them full size)