More to life than a hearse Pt 2

So you didn't buy a hearse afterall?

To the non-goth the idea of a goth car is a strange one, but hell, we all enjoy our little toys. For some, black paint and some gothic tunes on the stereo will do.

So what if your G.A.F ride then? Is it a goth car, or did you goth it up?

For me, it is the simple stuff, a rather funereal arrangement of black roses and a small skull tastefully sat between the rear shelf speakers, and a small gypsy rose gold pendant hanging from the rear view mirror. Not exactly the reaper's chariot but we are in a credit crunch and it is a Lexus darling.

What do you drive and why?

Have you taken the classic or hotrod approach and made a road monster, or did you decide to build an american behemoth, have you taken the route of the Japanese Bippu or VIP look to your Toyota Celsior, Honda Legend, or Nissan President, or does your little subcompact hatchback have a plushy Cthulu on the back seat and the collect works of Aleister Crowley on audio book?

How far have you gone down the goth car route?

Maybe you can match the attention to detail of the Bel Air Lugosi, both the owner and the car.

This is a car inspired by the classic 1950 custom car and adding some dark gothic elements, and not assembled in a high budget American rod shop, but hand built by a big haired enthusiast in Whitby.

Or perhaps you are more Jap VIP styler

With tucked wheels and perfect paint, originally, the toy of the aspiring Yakuza, quickly becoming the default look for the well paid japanese youth, it is easily a style that could suit the goth car, being a modern interpretation of the classic lowrider.

Once the choice of gang bosses, industrial magnates and emperors, the typical VIP or Bippu car would have been arround £50-100k new, and some, especially those produced by the styling houses are new or very near new, while others go with the classic route, giving immaculate examples of obselete models the treatment, with the deep dished wheels and slammed, usually airbagged rides and crazy wheel camber.

Or maybe you are an old skool rodder at heart and roll a rat?

The rat or traditional rod is a hark back to the original ethos of hotrodding. Stripping anything not needed out of the car in an effort to save weight and gain performance, along with hopped up engines and speedparts fitted in peoples back yards. These cars are the antithesis if the big budget show rod, sometimes even esqueing paint, taking aesthetic corruption to the point of being a form of inverted snobbery.

So how do you roll the dark highways? Modern or retro, mint or minging, do you show and shine or scratch and go. There is more to life than eurobox and the nine to five, and rat doesn't have to mean the rat race, whether VIP or RAT or Custom, do it your way.

May the road rise to meet you.