‘Rice Rockets’ Find Appeal in Mainstream

Southern California’s “rice rockets” have gone mainstream. Maybe it had to happen.

A little more than 10 years ago, these customized Hondas, Acuras and Toyotas made their debut on the local street-racing scene as a challenge to the American muscle car tradition.

With their eye-grabbing accessories, souped-up engines and owners who tended to be Asian American, they became a target of ethnic insults and the scorn of traditional performance enthusiasts.

Nowadays, tricked-out imports are the vehicle of choice for a multicultural audience of speed-loving and style-conscious teenagers and young adults coast to coast, industry experts say. They can be found in suburban high school parking lots, at small-town drive-through restaurants and parading through hip-hop music videos. Modified imports are so ubiquitous at UC Irvine that the college has been nicknamed the University of Civics and Integras.

“It’s everyone and everywhere,” said one UC Irvine student, Bruce Bradford, 21, the proud owner of a Honda Civic coupe that he has lowered two inches and outfitted with an oversized exhaust pipe tip, showy wheels and mud flaps painted white to match the rest of his car. “Image has a big influence--friends who say, ‘This looks cool.’ ”

Although 18- to 25-year-olds make up the core of compact performance enthusiasts, the trend cuts across all races, as well as both genders, according to the Specialty Equipment Market Assn., a Diamond Bar-based trade group for manufacturers of aftermarket auto parts and accessories.

The group’s research indicates that nationally whites make up 42% of so-called “import tuners;” Asians, 29%; Latinos, 16%; and African Americans, 8%. Seventeen percent are female.

Such diversity has helped fuel a multibillion-dollar market for exotic-looking spoilers, side panels and fenders, fancy gear knobs and Indiglo-lit gauges, the latest DVD systems and performance-enhancing engine parts that allow a humble four-cylinder to take on a venerable V-8 at a stoplight--and win.

With the average “tuner” spending $5,000 annually on customizing his car, sales of components made especially for compact cars have gone from $295 million in 1997 to a projected figure of $2.5 billion this year, said Jim Spoonhower, vice president of market research for the Specialty Equipment Market Assn.

“You still have a percentage within that 18-to-25 age group that will be content driving a car just the way it came off the lot. But you have a larger percentage that feels like they want to do something to the car,” Spoonhower said.

The fad got a big push last year with the release of “The Fast and the Furious,” a film that brought the world of import-loving Southern California street racers to the big screen and grossed $144.5 million at the box office.

Craig Lieberman, the movie’s technical director and former head of the National Import Racing Assn., said even those within the auto industry had been shocked by the momentum the film generated.

“What company would have predicted that, after ‘The Fast and the Furious,’ sales of neon [body] kits would go up 1,300% for every company that carried them, that the whole thing is so glamorized that everybody is going to want to be a part of it,” said Lieberman, 39, a self-described “sick car person” who lives in Orange County and whose own fully loaded Toyota Supra played a starring role in the movie.

With a sequel now in the works--this time it’s being shot in Florida instead of L.A.--Lieberman is once again helping the director and producers find the right cars for the project.

During an open vehicle casting call in early July in Santa Monica, nearly 500 people showed up hoping to have their cars selected for one of the dozen or so main parts. This though the event had been advertised only 36 hours before on Lieberman’s Web site, movie carz.com.

“People came from four different states and drove all night to get here,” he said. “These people spend a lot of time and money on their cars, and the opportunity to have it on screen, whether it’s five seconds or 35 seconds--it’s great for them.”

As it turned out, the producers decided to have their cars built for the primary roles instead of renting them. The decision was based on the difficulty and expense of creating stunt reproductions of import cars that had already been extensively modified with the intent of making them one-of-a-kind, Lieberman said.

Perhaps because of the trend’s origins in illegal street racing, or simply because of the generation gap that separates advertising executives from import performance enthusiasts, most auto makers have been slow to capitalize on the car craze.

On Monday, Honda was set to unveil its first Civic campaign featuring souped-up street versions of its cars. The commercial, shot in downtown Los Angeles at night, includes 65 area young people and their rides done up with flashy paint jobs, turbocharged engines, and specialized lights that a dealer isn’t likely to throw in with a set of floor mats.

Any doubt that imports are “in” dissolves after a visit to Fullerton Town Center, an outdoor shopping center that is one of several spots where young car buffs gather for cruise nights.

With the sounds of revving engines and squealing tires filling the air behind the In-N-Out Burger and clusters of youths bent over open hoods and rear hatches, it is a scene straight out of “American Graffiti,” with one notable exception: Japanese-designed imports outnumbered domestic cars and trucks by at least 2 to 1.

Anthony Hean, 21, of Long Beach was there to show off his 1995 Acura Integra GSR. He has owned the car for a year and has already spent nearly $5,000 customizing it with engine enhancements such as a reprogrammed computer chip to boost performance, and cosmetic alterations ranging from a $400 red racing seat to blue-tinged taillights.

Like other compact tuners, Hean, who has worked as a Mercedes-Benz mechanic, said he was drawn to imports for their affordability, reliability and potential for creative expression.

“I like the fact we are using a small-displacement engine and can beat a Camaro V-8 with a little time and money,” he said. “You get all that, plus the girls are looking for the imports too. They know it’s the thing to do right now.”

As with any cultural phenomenon that has gone from cult status to mass appeal in a short time, “rice rocket” styles are continuing to evolve at warp speed as trendsetters try to stay a step ahead of the masses and on the cutting edge. Imports tricked out with big rear wings, black wheel rims and neon-lighted underbodies--the type of designs that appeared in “The Fast and the Furious”--are already considered passe. The new look favored by the cognoscenti, fashioned after the latest models domestically produced in Japan, is cleaner, with fewer exterior frills.

So does the hobby’s popularity signal its ultimate demise? Its pioneers insist not, arguing that, as Generation Y ages, today’s Civic and Integra owners will continue to funnel their energy and disposable income into more expensive imports and higher-end parts.

“The passion these kids enjoy for their sport is unrivaled,” Lieberman said. “I can’t remember when one particular element has been so exciting to a group of people.”

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