I love cars and driving them. But the modded Corolla/Civic/Accord/Camry (why) people have always driven me crazy because their mods often seem directed to inflicting their cars on everyone else, with loud exhaust, subwoofers, and (subjectively) garish cosmetics, rather than things that make it actually good to drive.
I recognize this is judgmental and it's unhealthy to always be annoyed at these people on the road, so I clicked the article looking for some empathetic understanding - and I really got it, UNTIL he told me about his "fire-breathing" exhaust and subwoofer. So it is about subjecting OTHER people to his car.
I say this with respect and part jokingly but this is basically just a "shakes fist at cloud". And I don't disagree with you! But if people use their signal and drive sane it's not much a problem for me.
Very rarely do I see a modded car like this regardless of Make - and people make every Make/Model loud it's not just restricted to the aforementioned.
Many of the mods make the car worse in everyday environments, outside of a pristine track.
After I got into my friend's modded-out car, we had to slow to walking speeds to exit the parking lot because it would bottom out on the curb cut. The same happens with speed bumps. Large rims get damaged on potholes that a normal tire and rim combo would just shrug off.
Add a few years to your life and you don't want to crawl and duck into a low car anymore. Stiff suspensions are hard on the back and joints.
Unfortunately we’ve got one of these people across the street. He is training to be an electrician and starts his modded Toyota apparently with an amplified kazoo welded into the muffler at 4:15am every weekday. Shakes the entire house like a B-17 bomber.
I'm hearing someone gunning it through a neighboring road as I type this comment and I will be hearing such noise all night, because some people just can't help but make noise.
The other day I even saw a guy in a car with a modified exhaust and driver side window rolled down - apparently so that he would better hear the noise he's making. Considering the volume that had to have a negative effect on his hearing.
Super-bright headlights/aux lights improperly mounted or operated, blinding you at night.
Stereos you can almost feel before you hear them.
All these guys (and let's face it, it's 90% guys doing the irritating stuff) are being sold a dream by the mod manufacturers that if they just install this $1500 catback or this $1000 sub they will finally get the respect they deserve.
They get online forum/Facebook/Insta/TikTok validation but very few people around them are impressed with their choices.
I mainly hate how people are being taken for a ride (pardon the pun) by marketers and putting money into things that aren't really going to improve their car-driving experience.
It's not even automobiles. The entire concept of American masculinity is about inflicting yourself on as many other people as you can. The more insufferable you are, the more "manly" you are.
Or maybe it's an attention thing. Like a dog chewing your new shoes for attention, these people feel insecure when they aren't the center of attention, and making everyone around you mad and annoyed is still better than no attention at all.
No sure I see that any different than the typical American behemoth truck/SUV blocking all lines of sight to everything other than a 12 wheeler. And to top it off, they can't take a corner and so they all seem to slam their brakes and cause a traffic jam at any interesting corner.
All to transport one person by themselves from home to office and back.
Here in Europe, fat American-style SUVs are still somewhat rare, especially outside cities (!). People still can't corner worth shit in their "regular" sedans. And I say this as a pretty chill motorbike rider.
I've lost count of the number of Golf GTIs and similar behind which I have to wait around when riding on roads that aren't perfectly straight. And these cars should have better cornering ability than my fat bike. I know my dad's Corolla does.
There are other people around you who probably don't think they're fun. Hot tip: the other people you see out and about are real, thinking humans just like you who have their own thoughts and emotions and world views.
You should consider how your actions impact others.
Unfortunately yes. Many of the people driving tuner cars don't give a shit about cars and are merely mad that no one pays attention to them. There's an antisocial loser on my street, a ~50yo guy in a modded Infinity. The exhaust is so loud it shakes windows and I can't talk on the phone or hear my own music inside my house when it's nearby. And it's a shit car. He's destroyed it. It barely even drives. He gets tons of parking tickets because it's broken and he can't move it for months at a time, but he still goes outside and sits in it and revs the engine for sometimes 20-30 minutes at a time. When he "works on it", he lays on his back in the middle of the street, blocking traffic, for hours at a time. When he actually gets it working, he drives slowly around the block a few times, revving the engine again loud enough to annoy the entire neighborhood. All of my neighbors have reported him to the police, but they won't do anything. Whenever neighbors try to talk to him, he immediately starts screaming and waving his arms and approaching them until they back away. He's an antisocial loser.
I just wish these people comprehended and cared that you can be 2km away on a country road with your stupid engine and it's still loud as !@#$ for thousands of people in the city.
I live on the edge of a city and this is a nightly thing. It's louder than the air ambulance occasionally landing at the nearby helipad. It's louder than the 6-8 trains running through town.
My 1/3 life crisis was buying a Toyota Tacoma Trailhunter long bed last year. It’s been my dream to own a Tacoma for several years, so it was finally time to make it happen.
Eventually, I’d love to modify the exhaust to make it slightly louder. The turbo noise from the raised air intake is awesome enough and I’m curious if other drivers on the road can hear the turbo noise when I drive by them.
Please do not make your exhaust louder. I’m sure you will not listen to a rando on the internet but it will annoy the shit out of thousands of people for what? Some yuk yuks? I get it. It’s fun. I would enjoy it too, but not yours. please don’t.
Odds are excellent they cant hear it. If they can hear it they either absolutely do not care or find it mildly irritating and blame it on the nearest 1500 owner.
Lots of weird judgment and smugness in this thread. This guy bought a fun car that he's excited about? Well obviously he's POOR and IMMATURE because if he was RICH and OLD he would buy an ELECTRIC CAR that's WAY FASTER (in a straight line) and doesn't make nasty noises and smells!!! what an idiot!!!
I'm all for cracking down on excessively loud and stinky cars, but the GR Corolla is not that loud, and it has modern emissions controls. It is also, believe it or not, possible to own a moderately loud car (even with a modded exhaust) without subjecting your neighbors to backfires, 40 minute idling sessions, and loud fly-bys at every hour of the day and night.
The attitudes in this thread really show that people just don't get it, which is probably why the driver's car is an endangered species in $CURRENT_YEAR. How many cars are available in the US with a manual transmission these days? How many that don't cost six figures (or more)? You don't have to be excited about the same things as this guy, but there is a whole lot of projection going on in here from people who can't seem to think beyond how you're perceived by others as the main factor in choosing a car. Have you considered that maybe this guy just likes the car?
These threads pull the Tesla Camry Corolla civic and Prius drivers out of the shadows like clockwork. A miserable bunch that are jelly they don’t have the time or budget to customize their car to their liking. It’s a crabs in a bucket mentality -they think if my car is just an appliance to me it’s annoying when others treat theirs as special and I feel less than.
> It is also, believe it or not, possible to own a moderately loud car (even with a modded exhaust)
Not legally in many places. California limits exhaust levels to 95 dbA or less, and I'm betting that OP's mods violate that given that "ATAK exhaust systems produce the highest dB (decibel) levels in the Borla line" [0]. Washington state prohibits modifying exhaust "in a manner which will amplify or increase the noise emitted by the engine of such vehicle above that emitted by the muffler originally installed on the vehicle" [1]
> Have you considered that maybe this guy just likes the car?
I'm inclined to give the same amount of consideration for this guy's preferences as he is towards the thousands of people he chooses to subject to unnecessary, annoying, unhealthy[1], and likely illegal noise.
I wish everyone complaining about other people’s choices here were forced to also post the make/model of the very boring cars the commenter drives. People complaining about others mods are doing it out of insecurity… do you point out loud clothes and styling choices of your coworkers too?
You'd think that on a website that has the word "hacker" in its title, more people would be supportive of someone "hacking" their car, but I guess there's not a lot of car people here.
The only socially appropriate ways to inconvenience other people are to build dark patterns into your app to juice subscriptions, dump VC-funded detritus on the street and call it a startup, or take their life’s work and create an algorithm to regurgitate it back to them without paying them for it. Making your car louder? That’s just rude and inconsiderate.
No hacking involved. The tech equivalent is buying an Alienware PC from Best Buy and then taking it to the local computer shop to have them put in RGB fans and a liquid cooling system, while not overclocking we’re doing anything more than playing Minecraft sometimes
hacker vibes would be sharing how he learned to program the ecu with a laptop. or putting in a short throw. running linux on the headunit, etc. but no, all this guy did was put a louder, annoying exhaust on it and drives it like its a go kart. im just left wondering what stickers he will tastefully add to it? haha but its ok, its a mid life crisis after all.. if he is feeling happy and like a child again, thats totally great
My ongoing midlife crisis vehicle swerves in a different direction: I bought a 1988 Nishiki 1207 at a yard sale for $40. Mostly stock save for a new seat. With the wheels out of true, the stickers plastered over with garbage, the brakes loose, the front tire visibly cracking, the rear cassette visibly rusted, and the rack mounts stripped, the bike needs some work. I am motivated to finally really learn bike maintenance after putting it off for 30 years
When my wife was pregnant, our garage had an ND Miata (mine), a BRZ (hers) and an Elise (also hers). We pretty quickly decided that we were going to need some kind of car that we could reasonably put a car seat in, and while the BRZ nominally had a back seat, neither of us were interested in trying to fit a car seat and child into it.
We actually did consider a GR corolla, but ended up getting a used evo x that's been pretty fun instead.
I used to love cars but the roads are too crowded now for sports cars, between other drivers and cops and cameras you’re guaranteed to have a bad time. These days I’m all about utility for my vehicle (plus e-bike for the thrill). I do miss the stick shift sometimes though.
My midlife crisis car would probably be a land cruiser. No need to go fast. Space and chill is best.
A 3 cylinder Corolla, regardless of how fast, is just people transportation at best and in the worst inefficient way possible. A normal base 23k usd Corolla , not saying anything against the car mechanically it is a great machine for what it is.
Just, overkill. Can’t go fast, need to have higher insurance, it’s more at risk for theft, and it’s not easily replaceable as compared to a 23k corolla.
I did enjoy the Vietnamese part and history of fast and the furious. It’s been a good minute since I’ve seen the first one.
Love my Model Y. Looks boring, tons of stuff can be packed and still comparable acceleration to not that old BMW M3. And no smell and no noise. Fantastic car.
A friend of mine in college had the same CRX as the author and I’d get rides to campus with him. He passed away in an accident not long after the first Fast movie came out. I totally get what the author is saying about some cars being time machines/memory capsules.
I had a coworker who one day showed up to work, pointed out the window and said look I bought a midlife crisis car very matter-of-factly, and I will never understand this. You don't need to do anything, nobody is making you do this.
I'd imagine that it's them doing something they earnestly want to do, but trying to lampshade something that they believe people will perceive of them or be judgmental about. Like most self-deprecating humor, people often want to signal that they're 'in' on their behaviors and not completely unaware of how they're perceived.
I've wanted a Porsche my entire life. Doesn't have to be a track monster - actually, I'd prefer a lower-powered one. I want the handling of a Boxster, but a truly fast car is only fun on the track.
When I was young, I couldn't justify the cost. Now that I'm a bit older I could afford it, but I can't spare the time for a hobby. With kids still in child seats, I had to stick with a practical car.
When I'm 50? The kids will be old enough to sit up front. I probably still won't have a lot of time for a hobby, but I do have money now.
Buying a midlife crisis car doesn't mean that you feel it's a rite of passage. It doesn't mean someone felt like they had to. It might just mean that for the entire first half of their lives, there has always been a reason to /not/ buy the expensive toy they wanted. They finally treated themselves.
I guess what I don't get is the part where you broadcast that it's a midlife crisis. If I bought a super expensive computer or house or vacation I wouldn't walk into the office and announce I've had a midlife crisis. Maybe I'm being too literal, lol
I drove an i3 (Tiny sporty electric BMW) for a while, and it really changed how I see this kind of thing. The noise your car makes .. is wasted energy. You are blaring and bragging about your inefficiencies. That tiny i3 will out-accelerate you at every light, and you will be making a ton of noise, while it is nearly silent.
Car people seem to have got 'louder' and 'stronger' correlated in their heads, but they are NOT.
Writing a high brow essay about the ingenuity and hard work of import car culture while driving a modern Corolla iM and paying a mechanic to install a cold air intake. Lol.
Pinnacle of modern internet car guy is cosplaying as a F&F tuner while paying for a Reddit-approved aesthetic via catalogue and never dreaming of driving hard harder than a spirited on-ramp pull.
Self describing a basically stock corolla as a sleeper, just lol. Cargo cultism.
That is not a modern Corolla iM. The iM had about 130hp. The GR has 300. The iM had comfortable, "sensible Corolla" suspension. The GR has race suspension.
This is not a "basically stock" corolla. It's actually a really cool car with a fun story behind its design. Toyota's then-CEO Akio Toyoda is a big car nerd and an accomplished race car driver. The GR Corolla was his dream car. He was directly involved in the design and development of the car, and personally took the prototypes to the track for test drives to provide feedback to the engineering team.
It's ok that this is not your thing, but please do not be condescending towards other people's hobbies.
A few burned out - a high compression turbo charged 1.3L 3 cylinder engine is not a good idea.
VW has one on their Polo GTI but it is the iconic 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder TSI engine (EA888) - the normal Polo has 1L turbo charged 3 cylinder but even they did not try high boost.
My midlife crisis car is same price, much faster, more comfortable, and doesn’t wake the neighborhood when I drive it.
If you must relive the nostalgic, early 1900s technology of generating motion by rattling metal pistons with gasoline instead of steam then why not open Autotrader and buy any one of the Supras, 300ZX, 3000GTs, or other great 90s tuner cars that can be had for the same $50k as this 1.6 liter leaf blower. Shit, there’s a convertible 300ZX for $20k and now you’ve got $30k for mods.
I'm sure the author is a nice guy, but there's nothing I find more obnoxious than someone driving down a quiet neighbor with a vehicle they've modified to be intentionally loud.
My unexotic stock electric does 0-60 in around 4.8sec, +/-.
So the same performance that requires a stupid amount of wasted energy as heat and noise can be had from stock electric, with a couple hundred ms leftover. Do you care about performance, or do you just want to just fart out a bunch of noise?
I get traditional car culture, but electrics embody the "money talks, wealth whispers" truism.
Your "unexotic stock electric" is boring as shit to drive and corners like a boat. Stomping on the throttle and going very fast in a straight line is a big marketing point for modern EVs with an excess of power (and usually weight), but there's a reason the concept of a "driver's car" exists, and if you think it's just about making noise then you really, really, really don't understand why people buy them.
Who cares? Static skidpad performance has very little to do with how engaging a car is to drive, and engagement is what somebody buying a GRC (or a GR86, or a Miata, etc.) is looking for.
I also have an EV, probably the same one as the grandparent...a Tesla Model Y Dual Motor Long Range. It's rated at 0-60 in 4.8s. It also has good handling, with very little body lean through curves, and a lateral G force of around .85 G.
If I switched to the same tires as the Performance version, that would increase to .95 G. That is better than many legacy sports cars.
Those who love engine noise are the modern equivalent of those who, shortly after cars became mass-market, wanted them to include buggy whips. ;-)
More spec sheet flexing, more assumptions that for owners of internal combustion sports cars it's all about the noise. More projection. Another person who just doesn't get it.
I'm sorry to be harsh in this thread, but it's always odd to find these weird empathetic blind spots in people.
The article literally brags about how loud the car is (and makes it sound likr it was modified to be louder?) so it seems like a reasonable point to take issue with.
Fortunately or unfortunately, driving a car is a public activity and even as a hobby, other people are going to be exposed to it in a way that you just don't get from, say, building model boats out of toothpicks.
I'm a big fan of people having hobbies and enjoying them, but we live in a dense and crowded world where stuff like a loud car can negatively affect literally hundreds of other people.
less than 1g is pitiful tbh. I’m no pro but have maxed out the meter on my wee sports car >1g front, left and right. it can only muster 0.5g accel so it’s worse than a tesla, am I right? having put in some serious miles on a model 3, those electrics are in another league — below
this car is about handling in the twisties, not on straigh line.
if you care about performance, you should know that its not only momentary performance what matters, but sustaining it and on repeated occasions. this car is made to be driven hard in a circuit or mountain roads. a electric car overheats its battery and its brakes due to their weight.
the thing most close to electric sport car must be the ionic 5n. the rest is just old people saying "hey look how fast i can launch this car on the highway"
ps: most car people dont care about performance, but about the thrill and the emotion of driving
This guy's car may be designed to be driven hard in a circuit or mountain roads, but that ain't what this guy is doing:
> Now when I hit a loopy freeway interchange at night and my GR Corolla carves through the turn, it’s 1996 and I’m cruising in my CRX, getting pho in San Gabriel or rushing to a flyer party at Naga in Long Beach.
So doing the famous LA Stop-and-Go Freeway Circuit.
> We published our own magazines, built our own businesses, and for good and bad, promoted our own outlaw street racer image and our own beauty standard.
Or hitting the 4-way-intersection midnight drift curves.
Lets be honest, most people who drive these kinds of cars drive as many circuits as the average F-150 owner drives on western canyon dirt tracks.
Some do, sure, and if you do that, great, get the best tool for your job. But most people only daydream about these things and simply want the image as an escape from the existential meaningless of their suburban lives (is the op's "midlife crisis" title snark or an actual cry for meaning?)
I'm not gonna make judgements on what hobbies to spend your money on, do whatever floats your boat. But if your hobbies are really just reving a loud engine from one strip mall red light to the next red light 1/4 mile down the road, well, that's not the thrill and the emotion of driving, that's a desperate display of loneliness and disconnection.
the first time I drove a model 3 I felt like I couldn't stop. it's on par with my 80s van that has drum brakes on the rear. the brakes just aren't good enough for sport, the car weighs too much. if this is hard to understand, you're living in a different world from motorsports enthusiasts
I loved driving a sportbike with a tune and an unrestricted racing exhaust, if I revved it just right I could make it backfire directly into your rolled down window
Cute, but you haven't really lived until you've ripped an apocalyptic burnout in front of the dude that's been tailgating you for the last N miles. Trading ~1k worth of tire wear for coating the front of their car with rock chips and molten asphalt is a damn good deal.
I accidentally bought a midlife crisis car: a Subaru Trailseeker EV station wagon. It was cheaper (and more to form) than the 2026 Outback.
It just happens to be the fastest production vehicle Subaru has ever sold. Rip-your-face-off speed wasn’t even what I was after, I just wanted an EV wagon and it’s the only one in existence. Still: stupid fun and very unique car, I’ve had it for two months and haven’t seen another one on the road yet.
In 2026 the modded gas cars that are so much slower and ridiculously loud are honestly confusing. I absolutely love them for autocross, but people building track cars and then...never taking them to the track, pretending their suburb is a track, is just sad.
I love cars and driving them. But the modded Corolla/Civic/Accord/Camry (why) people have always driven me crazy because their mods often seem directed to inflicting their cars on everyone else, with loud exhaust, subwoofers, and (subjectively) garish cosmetics, rather than things that make it actually good to drive.
I recognize this is judgmental and it's unhealthy to always be annoyed at these people on the road, so I clicked the article looking for some empathetic understanding - and I really got it, UNTIL he told me about his "fire-breathing" exhaust and subwoofer. So it is about subjecting OTHER people to his car.
I say this with respect and part jokingly but this is basically just a "shakes fist at cloud". And I don't disagree with you! But if people use their signal and drive sane it's not much a problem for me. Very rarely do I see a modded car like this regardless of Make - and people make every Make/Model loud it's not just restricted to the aforementioned.
Your mileage may vary and that's all good
Many of the mods make the car worse in everyday environments, outside of a pristine track.
After I got into my friend's modded-out car, we had to slow to walking speeds to exit the parking lot because it would bottom out on the curb cut. The same happens with speed bumps. Large rims get damaged on potholes that a normal tire and rim combo would just shrug off.
Add a few years to your life and you don't want to crawl and duck into a low car anymore. Stiff suspensions are hard on the back and joints.
Unfortunately we’ve got one of these people across the street. He is training to be an electrician and starts his modded Toyota apparently with an amplified kazoo welded into the muffler at 4:15am every weekday. Shakes the entire house like a B-17 bomber.
I don't mind cosmetics, but noise is something some places fortunately started regulating and I hope it becomes more common:
https://nltimes.nl/2026/05/28/rotterdam-deploys-first-noise-...
I'm hearing someone gunning it through a neighboring road as I type this comment and I will be hearing such noise all night, because some people just can't help but make noise.
The other day I even saw a guy in a car with a modified exhaust and driver side window rolled down - apparently so that he would better hear the noise he's making. Considering the volume that had to have a negative effect on his hearing.
I don't understand and I will not understand.
So much of American car/motorcycle culture seems to be about that nowadays. And it's not limited to the Japanese mod scene, either.
Loud exhausts everywhere - pickups, domestic V6/V8's, motorcycles.
Super-bright headlights/aux lights improperly mounted or operated, blinding you at night.
Stereos you can almost feel before you hear them.
All these guys (and let's face it, it's 90% guys doing the irritating stuff) are being sold a dream by the mod manufacturers that if they just install this $1500 catback or this $1000 sub they will finally get the respect they deserve.
They get online forum/Facebook/Insta/TikTok validation but very few people around them are impressed with their choices.
I mainly hate how people are being taken for a ride (pardon the pun) by marketers and putting money into things that aren't really going to improve their car-driving experience.
Don't forget the pickups "rolling coal".
It's not even automobiles. The entire concept of American masculinity is about inflicting yourself on as many other people as you can. The more insufferable you are, the more "manly" you are.
Or maybe it's an attention thing. Like a dog chewing your new shoes for attention, these people feel insecure when they aren't the center of attention, and making everyone around you mad and annoyed is still better than no attention at all.
No sure I see that any different than the typical American behemoth truck/SUV blocking all lines of sight to everything other than a 12 wheeler. And to top it off, they can't take a corner and so they all seem to slam their brakes and cause a traffic jam at any interesting corner.
All to transport one person by themselves from home to office and back.
Here in Europe, fat American-style SUVs are still somewhat rare, especially outside cities (!). People still can't corner worth shit in their "regular" sedans. And I say this as a pretty chill motorbike rider.
I've lost count of the number of Golf GTIs and similar behind which I have to wait around when riding on roads that aren't perfectly straight. And these cars should have better cornering ability than my fat bike. I know my dad's Corolla does.
They can't park for shit either, so you lose spots in a parking lot and have to wait forever while they block the aisle backing out.
Subwoofers are really fun though.
There are other people around you who probably don't think they're fun. Hot tip: the other people you see out and about are real, thinking humans just like you who have their own thoughts and emotions and world views.
You should consider how your actions impact others.
Unfortunately yes. Many of the people driving tuner cars don't give a shit about cars and are merely mad that no one pays attention to them. There's an antisocial loser on my street, a ~50yo guy in a modded Infinity. The exhaust is so loud it shakes windows and I can't talk on the phone or hear my own music inside my house when it's nearby. And it's a shit car. He's destroyed it. It barely even drives. He gets tons of parking tickets because it's broken and he can't move it for months at a time, but he still goes outside and sits in it and revs the engine for sometimes 20-30 minutes at a time. When he "works on it", he lays on his back in the middle of the street, blocking traffic, for hours at a time. When he actually gets it working, he drives slowly around the block a few times, revving the engine again loud enough to annoy the entire neighborhood. All of my neighbors have reported him to the police, but they won't do anything. Whenever neighbors try to talk to him, he immediately starts screaming and waving his arms and approaching them until they back away. He's an antisocial loser.
Hard to meet a modder that isn't a loser like this.
I just wish these people comprehended and cared that you can be 2km away on a country road with your stupid engine and it's still loud as !@#$ for thousands of people in the city.
I live on the edge of a city and this is a nightly thing. It's louder than the air ambulance occasionally landing at the nearby helipad. It's louder than the 6-8 trains running through town.
My 1/3 life crisis was buying a Toyota Tacoma Trailhunter long bed last year. It’s been my dream to own a Tacoma for several years, so it was finally time to make it happen.
Eventually, I’d love to modify the exhaust to make it slightly louder. The turbo noise from the raised air intake is awesome enough and I’m curious if other drivers on the road can hear the turbo noise when I drive by them.
Please do not make your exhaust louder. I’m sure you will not listen to a rando on the internet but it will annoy the shit out of thousands of people for what? Some yuk yuks? I get it. It’s fun. I would enjoy it too, but not yours. please don’t.
Odds are excellent they cant hear it. If they can hear it they either absolutely do not care or find it mildly irritating and blame it on the nearest 1500 owner.
Lots of weird judgment and smugness in this thread. This guy bought a fun car that he's excited about? Well obviously he's POOR and IMMATURE because if he was RICH and OLD he would buy an ELECTRIC CAR that's WAY FASTER (in a straight line) and doesn't make nasty noises and smells!!! what an idiot!!!
I'm all for cracking down on excessively loud and stinky cars, but the GR Corolla is not that loud, and it has modern emissions controls. It is also, believe it or not, possible to own a moderately loud car (even with a modded exhaust) without subjecting your neighbors to backfires, 40 minute idling sessions, and loud fly-bys at every hour of the day and night.
The attitudes in this thread really show that people just don't get it, which is probably why the driver's car is an endangered species in $CURRENT_YEAR. How many cars are available in the US with a manual transmission these days? How many that don't cost six figures (or more)? You don't have to be excited about the same things as this guy, but there is a whole lot of projection going on in here from people who can't seem to think beyond how you're perceived by others as the main factor in choosing a car. Have you considered that maybe this guy just likes the car?
These threads pull the Tesla Camry Corolla civic and Prius drivers out of the shadows like clockwork. A miserable bunch that are jelly they don’t have the time or budget to customize their car to their liking. It’s a crabs in a bucket mentality -they think if my car is just an appliance to me it’s annoying when others treat theirs as special and I feel less than.
> It is also, believe it or not, possible to own a moderately loud car (even with a modded exhaust)
Not legally in many places. California limits exhaust levels to 95 dbA or less, and I'm betting that OP's mods violate that given that "ATAK exhaust systems produce the highest dB (decibel) levels in the Borla line" [0]. Washington state prohibits modifying exhaust "in a manner which will amplify or increase the noise emitted by the engine of such vehicle above that emitted by the muffler originally installed on the vehicle" [1]
> Have you considered that maybe this guy just likes the car?
I'm inclined to give the same amount of consideration for this guy's preferences as he is towards the thousands of people he chooses to subject to unnecessary, annoying, unhealthy[1], and likely illegal noise.
[0] https://www.borla.com/products/atak
[1] https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.37.390
[2] https://noiseawareness.org/noise-hurts/impact-on-health/
> I'm all for cracking down on excessively loud and stinky cars, but the GR Corolla is not that loud, and it has modern emissions controls.
Of course it's not loud from the factory, Toyota isn't going to sell a car that violates noise standards.
But he binned the Toyota mufflers and installed something significantly louder.
I wish everyone complaining about other people’s choices here were forced to also post the make/model of the very boring cars the commenter drives. People complaining about others mods are doing it out of insecurity… do you point out loud clothes and styling choices of your coworkers too?
You'd think that on a website that has the word "hacker" in its title, more people would be supportive of someone "hacking" their car, but I guess there's not a lot of car people here.
The only socially appropriate ways to inconvenience other people are to build dark patterns into your app to juice subscriptions, dump VC-funded detritus on the street and call it a startup, or take their life’s work and create an algorithm to regurgitate it back to them without paying them for it. Making your car louder? That’s just rude and inconsiderate.
No hacking involved. The tech equivalent is buying an Alienware PC from Best Buy and then taking it to the local computer shop to have them put in RGB fans and a liquid cooling system, while not overclocking we’re doing anything more than playing Minecraft sometimes
hacker vibes would be sharing how he learned to program the ecu with a laptop. or putting in a short throw. running linux on the headunit, etc. but no, all this guy did was put a louder, annoying exhaust on it and drives it like its a go kart. im just left wondering what stickers he will tastefully add to it? haha but its ok, its a mid life crisis after all.. if he is feeling happy and like a child again, thats totally great
My ongoing midlife crisis vehicle swerves in a different direction: I bought a 1988 Nishiki 1207 at a yard sale for $40. Mostly stock save for a new seat. With the wheels out of true, the stickers plastered over with garbage, the brakes loose, the front tire visibly cracking, the rear cassette visibly rusted, and the rack mounts stripped, the bike needs some work. I am motivated to finally really learn bike maintenance after putting it off for 30 years
I also own a GR Corolla. it's a fantastic car.
I have a GR Corolla and it's great in the mountains! It's tiny light and fun and fits a car seat (barely).
I wouldn't consider a loud GRC w/ catback a "sleeper" though - it's quite the opposite??
When my wife was pregnant, our garage had an ND Miata (mine), a BRZ (hers) and an Elise (also hers). We pretty quickly decided that we were going to need some kind of car that we could reasonably put a car seat in, and while the BRZ nominally had a back seat, neither of us were interested in trying to fit a car seat and child into it.
We actually did consider a GR corolla, but ended up getting a used evo x that's been pretty fun instead.
Modding a car to be louder is antisocial behavior and should be illegal.
I used to love cars but the roads are too crowded now for sports cars, between other drivers and cops and cameras you’re guaranteed to have a bad time. These days I’m all about utility for my vehicle (plus e-bike for the thrill). I do miss the stick shift sometimes though.
My midlife crisis car would probably be a land cruiser. No need to go fast. Space and chill is best.
A 3 cylinder Corolla, regardless of how fast, is just people transportation at best and in the worst inefficient way possible. A normal base 23k usd Corolla , not saying anything against the car mechanically it is a great machine for what it is.
Just, overkill. Can’t go fast, need to have higher insurance, it’s more at risk for theft, and it’s not easily replaceable as compared to a 23k corolla.
I did enjoy the Vietnamese part and history of fast and the furious. It’s been a good minute since I’ve seen the first one.
This was a great article. As for movies, be the change you want to see. For example,
Fish, Prawn, Crab is an indie Asian American movie in development.
Anyone who modifies their car to "sound like a fire breathing dragon" is a mouth breathing loser.
Love my Model Y. Looks boring, tons of stuff can be packed and still comparable acceleration to not that old BMW M3. And no smell and no noise. Fantastic car.
I'm past mid life, but my fall back cars to my youth have been convertibles. The last round being SLK's.
A friend of mine in college had the same CRX as the author and I’d get rides to campus with him. He passed away in an accident not long after the first Fast movie came out. I totally get what the author is saying about some cars being time machines/memory capsules.
I had a coworker who one day showed up to work, pointed out the window and said look I bought a midlife crisis car very matter-of-factly, and I will never understand this. You don't need to do anything, nobody is making you do this.
I'd imagine that it's them doing something they earnestly want to do, but trying to lampshade something that they believe people will perceive of them or be judgmental about. Like most self-deprecating humor, people often want to signal that they're 'in' on their behaviors and not completely unaware of how they're perceived.
I've wanted a Porsche my entire life. Doesn't have to be a track monster - actually, I'd prefer a lower-powered one. I want the handling of a Boxster, but a truly fast car is only fun on the track.
When I was young, I couldn't justify the cost. Now that I'm a bit older I could afford it, but I can't spare the time for a hobby. With kids still in child seats, I had to stick with a practical car.
When I'm 50? The kids will be old enough to sit up front. I probably still won't have a lot of time for a hobby, but I do have money now.
Buying a midlife crisis car doesn't mean that you feel it's a rite of passage. It doesn't mean someone felt like they had to. It might just mean that for the entire first half of their lives, there has always been a reason to /not/ buy the expensive toy they wanted. They finally treated themselves.
I guess what I don't get is the part where you broadcast that it's a midlife crisis. If I bought a super expensive computer or house or vacation I wouldn't walk into the office and announce I've had a midlife crisis. Maybe I'm being too literal, lol
I drove an i3 (Tiny sporty electric BMW) for a while, and it really changed how I see this kind of thing. The noise your car makes .. is wasted energy. You are blaring and bragging about your inefficiencies. That tiny i3 will out-accelerate you at every light, and you will be making a ton of noise, while it is nearly silent.
Car people seem to have got 'louder' and 'stronger' correlated in their heads, but they are NOT.
Damn a GR Corolla is one of my dream cars. Super cool!
Writing a high brow essay about the ingenuity and hard work of import car culture while driving a modern Corolla iM and paying a mechanic to install a cold air intake. Lol.
Pinnacle of modern internet car guy is cosplaying as a F&F tuner while paying for a Reddit-approved aesthetic via catalogue and never dreaming of driving hard harder than a spirited on-ramp pull.
Self describing a basically stock corolla as a sleeper, just lol. Cargo cultism.
That is not a modern Corolla iM. The iM had about 130hp. The GR has 300. The iM had comfortable, "sensible Corolla" suspension. The GR has race suspension.
This is not a "basically stock" corolla. It's actually a really cool car with a fun story behind its design. Toyota's then-CEO Akio Toyoda is a big car nerd and an accomplished race car driver. The GR Corolla was his dream car. He was directly involved in the design and development of the car, and personally took the prototypes to the track for test drives to provide feedback to the engineering team.
It's ok that this is not your thing, but please do not be condescending towards other people's hobbies.
A few burned out - a high compression turbo charged 1.3L 3 cylinder engine is not a good idea.
VW has one on their Polo GTI but it is the iconic 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder TSI engine (EA888) - the normal Polo has 1L turbo charged 3 cylinder but even they did not try high boost.
My midlife crisis car is same price, much faster, more comfortable, and doesn’t wake the neighborhood when I drive it.
If you must relive the nostalgic, early 1900s technology of generating motion by rattling metal pistons with gasoline instead of steam then why not open Autotrader and buy any one of the Supras, 300ZX, 3000GTs, or other great 90s tuner cars that can be had for the same $50k as this 1.6 liter leaf blower. Shit, there’s a convertible 300ZX for $20k and now you’ve got $30k for mods.
If it isn't a blatant cry for attention can it really be considered a midlife crisis car?
I mean, if this isn't the place to share this video, I'm not sure where IS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLJETZyfb7I
> "Now from the rear it looks like four black bazookas are hidden below the bumper and on start-up it sounds like a fire-breathing dragon"
Ah yes, the "everybody in a 3 mile radius must know how much I spent on my exhaust"-mobile
I'm sure the author is a nice guy, but there's nothing I find more obnoxious than someone driving down a quiet neighbor with a vehicle they've modified to be intentionally loud.
In an alternate universe the cannonball runners, with their cars silent, unassuming, but blazingly fast won over the car modding scene
A GR Corolla goes 0-60 in 4.9 - 5.4sec.
My unexotic stock electric does 0-60 in around 4.8sec, +/-.
So the same performance that requires a stupid amount of wasted energy as heat and noise can be had from stock electric, with a couple hundred ms leftover. Do you care about performance, or do you just want to just fart out a bunch of noise?
I get traditional car culture, but electrics embody the "money talks, wealth whispers" truism.
Your "unexotic stock electric" is boring as shit to drive and corners like a boat. Stomping on the throttle and going very fast in a straight line is a big marketing point for modern EVs with an excess of power (and usually weight), but there's a reason the concept of a "driver's car" exists, and if you think it's just about making noise then you really, really, really don't understand why people buy them.
By the way, the stock Corolla GR can pull right around .95 G, just like the Model Y Performance...
Who cares? Static skidpad performance has very little to do with how engaging a car is to drive, and engagement is what somebody buying a GRC (or a GR86, or a Miata, etc.) is looking for.
I also have an EV, probably the same one as the grandparent...a Tesla Model Y Dual Motor Long Range. It's rated at 0-60 in 4.8s. It also has good handling, with very little body lean through curves, and a lateral G force of around .85 G.
If I switched to the same tires as the Performance version, that would increase to .95 G. That is better than many legacy sports cars.
Those who love engine noise are the modern equivalent of those who, shortly after cars became mass-market, wanted them to include buggy whips. ;-)
More spec sheet flexing, more assumptions that for owners of internal combustion sports cars it's all about the noise. More projection. Another person who just doesn't get it.
I'm sorry to be harsh in this thread, but it's always odd to find these weird empathetic blind spots in people.
The article literally brags about how loud the car is (and makes it sound likr it was modified to be louder?) so it seems like a reasonable point to take issue with.
Fortunately or unfortunately, driving a car is a public activity and even as a hobby, other people are going to be exposed to it in a way that you just don't get from, say, building model boats out of toothpicks.
I'm a big fan of people having hobbies and enjoying them, but we live in a dense and crowded world where stuff like a loud car can negatively affect literally hundreds of other people.
less than 1g is pitiful tbh. I’m no pro but have maxed out the meter on my wee sports car >1g front, left and right. it can only muster 0.5g accel so it’s worse than a tesla, am I right? having put in some serious miles on a model 3, those electrics are in another league — below
this car is about handling in the twisties, not on straigh line.
if you care about performance, you should know that its not only momentary performance what matters, but sustaining it and on repeated occasions. this car is made to be driven hard in a circuit or mountain roads. a electric car overheats its battery and its brakes due to their weight.
the thing most close to electric sport car must be the ionic 5n. the rest is just old people saying "hey look how fast i can launch this car on the highway"
ps: most car people dont care about performance, but about the thrill and the emotion of driving
This guy's car may be designed to be driven hard in a circuit or mountain roads, but that ain't what this guy is doing:
> Now when I hit a loopy freeway interchange at night and my GR Corolla carves through the turn, it’s 1996 and I’m cruising in my CRX, getting pho in San Gabriel or rushing to a flyer party at Naga in Long Beach.
So doing the famous LA Stop-and-Go Freeway Circuit.
> We published our own magazines, built our own businesses, and for good and bad, promoted our own outlaw street racer image and our own beauty standard.
Or hitting the 4-way-intersection midnight drift curves.
Lets be honest, most people who drive these kinds of cars drive as many circuits as the average F-150 owner drives on western canyon dirt tracks.
Some do, sure, and if you do that, great, get the best tool for your job. But most people only daydream about these things and simply want the image as an escape from the existential meaningless of their suburban lives (is the op's "midlife crisis" title snark or an actual cry for meaning?)
I'm not gonna make judgements on what hobbies to spend your money on, do whatever floats your boat. But if your hobbies are really just reving a loud engine from one strip mall red light to the next red light 1/4 mile down the road, well, that's not the thrill and the emotion of driving, that's a desperate display of loneliness and disconnection.
I've yet to have any issues with the battery overheating, and most if not all of the braking is regenerative (no brake pad wear).
the first time I drove a model 3 I felt like I couldn't stop. it's on par with my 80s van that has drum brakes on the rear. the brakes just aren't good enough for sport, the car weighs too much. if this is hard to understand, you're living in a different world from motorsports enthusiasts
Just like my neighbors with Harleys that drunk drive home at 2a revving the engine.
There is nothing like the rage I feel when a car/motorcycle is moving 5mph in heavy traffic doing nothing but revving the engine nonstop.
My car has a 3.5L V6 and is almost silent. The only reason to fit one of those exhausts is to be an arsehole to everyone around you.
I loved driving a sportbike with a tune and an unrestricted racing exhaust, if I revved it just right I could make it backfire directly into your rolled down window
This is a genuine question and not intended as an insult: do you have a personality disorder?
Eh, you ride a bike long enough and you're more or less forced into this level of hostility toward the drivers around you.
Maybe a bicycle. If you ride a bike long enough on US roads - you probably have a death wish.
Given the gun ownership rates, I wouldn't be surprised if someone gets shot for doing obnoxious shit in a road rage incident.
Cute, but you haven't really lived until you've ripped an apocalyptic burnout in front of the dude that's been tailgating you for the last N miles. Trading ~1k worth of tire wear for coating the front of their car with rock chips and molten asphalt is a damn good deal.
I accidentally bought a midlife crisis car: a Subaru Trailseeker EV station wagon. It was cheaper (and more to form) than the 2026 Outback.
It just happens to be the fastest production vehicle Subaru has ever sold. Rip-your-face-off speed wasn’t even what I was after, I just wanted an EV wagon and it’s the only one in existence. Still: stupid fun and very unique car, I’ve had it for two months and haven’t seen another one on the road yet.
In 2026 the modded gas cars that are so much slower and ridiculously loud are honestly confusing. I absolutely love them for autocross, but people building track cars and then...never taking them to the track, pretending their suburb is a track, is just sad.