What the hell are they for?
I just dont get it*

*I know I could probably just google this but where is the fun in that.

Stone chip protection, probably more of an issue if you drive on lots of unmade or poorly surfaced roads than there are in SE England…

Scene whore tat.

I don’t quite get the point of them on the majority of cars i see them on. So your protecting your paint by putting some horrific looking black thing on the front of your car. Its like your trying to keep you car in pristine condition so the next owner can enjoy it looking good.

They are a very north American thing but now pointless with the availability of 3M paint shield film.

parkesie – Member
Scene whore tat.

This ^

Look great when you take them off and the paint no longer matches

No, I’ve no idea why they do it either. The “bra” will probably cause paint damage anyway.

Who decided that it was to be “a thing” along with roofracks, car resting on the bumpstops, garlands obscuring the driver’s view etc?

Who decided that it was to be “a thing” along with roofracks, car resting on the bumpstops, garlands obscuring the driver’s view etc?

..along with big stone piers on roofracks.^^

It’s a scene thing.

yesterday saw a slammed golf with stretch tyres….sitting on the side of the road with a displaced bead. Cant imagine why that happened.

🙄

slowpuncheur – Member

It’s a scene thing.
What does that actually mean?

What does that actually mean?

Imagine a fashion/culture tribal thing (mods/punks/skins/hipsters) where you can recognize another member by their choice of appearance and judghe their ‘coolness’ by how strictly they ahdere to the current ‘rules’. It’s that for cars.

What does that actually mean?

A lazy retort from people who want to stand out by following others?

You see a lot of them in the US. #wannabeyanks

Stone chips are ugly, so you stick an even uglier car bra on your car, so that when you sell it, the next owner can get the advantage of the nice paint you’ve never seen.

Stretched tyres is a weird one. I always took it for granted that dubbers had the best taste in wheels. I mean, if there’s one iconic vehicle mod look, it’s the half-finished golf covered in primer or bolf with a different coloured nose… but always with perfect, tasteful, correct sized on it. It’s in the dna.

And then, along came stretched tyres and ruined it all. Banded steels with stretched tyres the same size as your original wheels came with? I love car culture and mods and I think it’s wrong to judge people for their individual expression but that is retarded.

Theres a Golf VR6 just down the road from me. Looks and sounds really nice, apart from the fact that its sat on its bump stops with stretched tyres and it just looks shit as a result.

modified VW’s always go down well on here. 8)

you’d have loved one of my old creations, ticks all the boxes above I think?

I prefer your earlier work;

elderly dowager that one, not totally with it but would go for hours.

All the rays of sunshine are in this thread, aren’t they?

What does that actually mean?

Imagine a fashion/culture tribal thing (mods/punks/skins/hipsters) where you can recognize another member by their choice of appearance and judghe their ‘coolness’ by how strictly they ahdere to the current ‘rules’. It’s that for cars.

See also:
Enduro (must have specialized SWAT bibs Vs not being seen dead in a roadie jersey)
Singlespeeds (it had better be high end steel and cost more than your summer bike)
Fat bikes (pick a tyre size, 4.0 or 4.8 tell the others they’re wrong and ignore anyone on a specialized with 4.5’s)
Downhill (skinsuits are gheyyyyyyyyyy, lets all wear our pyjamas)
Sportives

Even audax, the biking equivalent of the ratrod, you want a fast bike, but it has to deliberately look like it’s just been dragged out of the shed and cobbled together. “Ohh this old bike, it’s just my old steel race bike from the 70’s, no I definitely wasn’t born in the 80’s, and definitely didn’t pay far more for it than any old carbon or aluminium frame would have cost”

It’s the mix of car trends on one car that I hate.

The Bras are a US thing from driving on the long interstate roads, stops stone chips and helps deflect flies from hitting the windscreen too.
The stretched tyre thing is from Germany as the TUV rules say that the tread of the tyre must not extend past the bodywork but the rims can so they stretch the tyre to make it look wide. Unfortunately in the UK the MOT states the tyre and rim must be inside the bodywork shadow so it’s illegal to run like that here. Same with the fashion for German license plates, not legal here.

The worst though is the fashion for having a pickup truck with a (usually Evoc) rubber thing draped over the back tailgate so you can put your bikes in the back with the front tyre over it. It’s a US thing due to pickups being cheap as they’re classed as commercial vehicles so get a much lower tax band. This means they’re cheap second-hand so kids can afford them. Over here they’re massively expensive and mainly impractical, a van is a better idea.

I’m all for individuality in cars but they’re all following the herd.

Loved my bra saved a lot of cleaning issues like flies when I hit him at 42 mph 🙂
never got stopped for hiding the reg plate neither

[url=https://flic.kr/p/qqNJS]Camping Dusk till Dawn[/url] by Richard Munro, on Flickr

Each to their own I think. Like the other hundreds of times this has been bought up here.

The stretched tyre thing is from Germany as the TUV rules say that the tread of the tyre must not extend past the bodywork but the rims can so they stretch the tyre to make it look wide. Unfortunately in the UK the MOT states the tyre and rim must be inside the bodywork shadow so it’s illegal to run like that here. Same with the fashion for German license plates, not legal here.

Low riders have been stretching tyres for years too, drift cars as well.

It’s not an MOT fail but you can get pulled for it, one of those law oddities.

thisisnotaspoon – Member

Fat bikes (pick a tyre size, 4.0 or 4.8 tell the others they’re wrong and ignore anyone on a specialized with 4.5’s)

😆 But what if you have 4.8s that actually measure 4.5?

It’s a scene thing, like tats.

I have never seen any point in any car mods .

It’s all typical of the shite we spend our money on rather than pay more taxes and have pot-hole free roads to drive on.

Can’t help but smile when I see someone had left one on far too long in the UK and when they take it off their lacquer has degraded and blistered.

They are meant for use in dry environments to protect against stone chips on dry, dusty roads. In the UK they just get wet and hold water against the lacquer which absorbs it and suffers hydrolysis, goes white, swells and blisters off your paint leaving you with a nice bill for respraying the bonnet.

Why the roof racks?

When these folk get old, will they tow caravans which have fabric covers on the front?

postierich – Member

Loved my bra saved a lot of cleaning issues like flies when I hit him at 42 mph

I guess I don’t understand… Did you just not clean it? You can do that with paint, too

The worst though is the fashion for having a pickup truck with a (usually Evoc) rubber thing draped over the back tailgate so you can put your bikes in the back with the front tyre over it. It’s a US thing due to pickups being cheap as they’re classed as commercial vehicles so get a much lower tax band. This means they’re cheap second-hand so kids can afford them. Over here they’re massively expensive and mainly impractical, a van is a better idea.

Have to disagree, I love my pickup, much nicer to drive than my van, no difference in terms of tax / BIC as far as I know.. Much easier to drop the bikes over the tailgate than strap them in the back of the van. Certainly easier to get 5 people and bikes in.
I don’t have a pad though, I use a bi of old carpet!

Bras are for tits. Simples 🙂

I’ve always assumed they’re a cheapish way to differentiate your self / van from a tradesman / courier van. Not got one myself though, a bra or a van.

Northwind 🙄

Low riders have been stretching tyres for years too, drift cars as well.

It’s not an MOT fail but you can get pulled for it, one of those law oddities

They are trying to and quite rightly too.

http://www.clubpolo.co.uk/forums/topic/344944-stretched-tyres-an-mot-failure-information-from-dvsa/

Used to see then a lot in the US when lived there in the early ’90s, more typically in the winter. These days they have added them for the bumoers too front and rear.

I understood them to be for protecting the car against flecks of molten tar during the summer in very hot states. Tar being very difficult to remove; the bra is black so it doesn’t show and you can remove it when the temps drop.

Certainly saw loads of them in Texas and not in other places I’ve been.

postierich – Member

Northwind

I’m serious, I don’t really get it. I quite like how the bra looks on your bus btw, way nicer than the usual car ones… But I don’t see how a bra covered in bugs is different from paint covered in bugs.