Rice burner

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Template:Unreferenced Image:Ricerburner-neon.jpg The term rice burner or rice car or ricer most often refers to automobiles (usually economy cars) that have the appearance of a high performance car, but often have little or no functional modifications applied, such as an improved engine, suspension, or brakes. This practice is in contrast to the "stealth" or "sleeper" style of automotive modification, where a vehicle may have major internal modifications for greater performance, but the appearance remains similar to that of a stock model. Almost any vehicle can be modified in this manner, but the most common vehicles are usually the sport compact models from most major automakers.

Some people will call any Asian made vehicle a "rice car", frequently derogating them in favor of U.S.-produced vehicles. There is also some confusion with the term "rice rocket," which refers to a fast car, sports car, or sport motorcycle from Japan. Alternatively, the term "rice burner" is also used derogatively by American bikers to refer to foreign-make motorcycles.

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Origin

The word "rice" refers to the fact that the vehicles the term was originally applied to were of Japanese origin and the heavy use of rice in East Asian cuisine. The term originally referred to Japanese motorcycles in the early to mid eighties, but grew out of muscle car enthusiasts' jokes that cars from Japan used engines powered by rice alcohol. The climate of the East Asian region provides optimal growing conditions for rice, and rice has historically been a staple food source in Japan and other Asian countries; as such, this word has associated itself with that racial group in the same way pasta is associated with Italians (e.g. using the term "pasta rocket" to describe Italian made sports cars such as the Ferrari or the Lamborghini). Recently, the term "American rice", "domestic rice", or "wheat burner" has been used to describe American-made cars that have been aesthetically modified.

Drivers of rice burners are known as "ricers" or "rice boys". While some people claim "ricer" is an ethnic slur, this is only likely to apply if the term was being used derogatively against someone of Asian descent. The movie "The Fast and the Furious" in 2001 helped publicize and expand the visibility of automobile modification and may have resulted in an increase in the number of cars being modified cosmetically. The sport of drifting has also proved a major attraction for the owners of riced vehicles.

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American Ricer

The term "American Ricer" is used to refer to an American vehicle that has been aesthetically customized to give the appearance of a high-performance vehicle, much like "rice burner" refers to nearly any type of vehicle (but usually Japanese) modified in this manner. As with any riced-up vehicle, American ricers can be given a wide variety of style-oriented accessories, which are detailed below.

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Characteristics

Image:Poser.JPG "Ricing" (a term usually not used by the modifier himself) a vehicle is meant to emulate the aesthetic work of independent automotive car tuning companies who modify more than just appearance, and to give an appearance of greater ability than the car actually has. Ricing is generally looked down upon amongst people who actually modify the running parts of the vehicle itself, e.g. engine tuning.

Common aftermarket modifications in this style, or "rice", can include:

  • Body modifications
    • Aerodynamic-looking or artistically creative body kits
    • Wings and spoilers that serve no useful function
      • With FF/front wheel drive cars, a rear spoiler serves no other purpose than cosmetic, as the resulting downward force on the rear of the car will reduce downforce on the front of the car, lowering power and traction. Additionally, the largest spoilers have negligible effect until the car is driven at a very high speed. Furthermore, many wings used are not tuned in windtunnels, and are not useful even at high speeds; they may cause excessive drag and wind noise as well.
    • Carbon fiber hoods (sometimes fiberglass replicas made to look like carbon fiber)
    • Non-functional hood scoops
    • Excessively large wheels ("rims") (for example chromed, or "dubs") that often decrease acceleration due to higher rotational inertia. Handling is also often made worse by the extra unsprung weight.
    • Spinner wheel covers, which result in the wheels appearing to rotate either slower or faster than reality. These can be dangerous if improperly maintained, and also increase unsprung weight.
    • Dual windshield wipers replaced with a single-wiper mechanism
    • Improperly lowered suspension, such as stock springs shortened by heating or cutting. This action is frowned upon by both seasoned tuners and spring manufacturers. Heating a spring will remove the temper and weaken it, ultimately causing failure, and cutting springs may severely compromise safety and handling characteristics.
  • Aesthetics
    • Bright paint or interior, frequently in contrasting colors
    • Decals and stickers for aftermarket parts not actually present on the vehicle
      • with the name of the car's model in a stylized font, usually covering the upper rear window or front windshield
      • in kanji characters
    • Badging from other higher-performance vehicles (Honda's "Type-R" and Nissan's "GT-R" being the most common)
    • Badging from JDM tuning companies like Mugen, Nismo, etc.
    • Other graphics that seem to not "fit" with the car (side graphics, flames, racing stripes, etc.)
  • A loud, free-flowing exhaust system with a large cylindrical resonator at the rear of the car. Some vehicles also sport dual-pipe catback exhaust systems with two exhaust tips. If carefully designed for the engine, these can provide a small performance increase—but typically, they lower the velocity of exhaust flow and thereby decrease power output.
    • In many cases, only the last few inches of the exhaust are replaced, producing no change in performance or sound. These are sometimes called "coffee cans", based on one method of constructing them.
  • Racing equipment used in an improper manner. For example, a racing tachometer used in an automatic transmission car that was meant to be used in a manual transmission car.
  • Lighting
    • Decorative neon and LED lighting in addition to the regular head/tail lamps and brake/turn signals, such as lighted windshield washer nozzles and tire valve caps, underbody neon lighting ("hover lights"), etc.
    • Euro-style taillights (also known as "altezza"-style lights or "altezzas" (equally popular and known as "lexus" lights in Europe))
    • Super-bright headlight bulbs (although most of these bulbs offer better lighting than conventional halogen bulbs), sometimes of illegal specification and poorly aligned; colored bulbs, also often illegal, which are used for turning signals, side-markers, etc.
    • Unnecessary fog lights and extra lighting units usually intended for off-roading vehicles (often intended for Rally races), generally illuminated in inappropriate conditions or dangerous/illegal manners
  • Sloppy workmanship
    • Poorly fitted body kits
    • Excessive areas of exposed primer and/or body filler (Bondo)
    • Car has any of the aforementioned modifications, yet looks like it has not been taken care of for a long time (dirty, parts of the car with smashed or dented body work, etc.)

Image:Pink civic.jpg Not all automobiles with any of these modifications are rice burners, nor are all merely cosmetic. Some drivers who opt to perform one or a few of these stereotypical ricer modifications to their car will argue that they did not intend to make their car appear fast in the first place; their goal was simply to improve the look of their vehicle for purely cosmetic purposes. However, some modifications by themselves are almost immediately labeled as ricing. For example, the large and loud exhaust tip and/or dual cat-back exahust systems are synonymous with rice-burning, even if no other modifications are done to the car.

Not all the above modifications are useless from a performance standpoint, either. Sometimes, body kits do serve aerodynamic purposes by increasing downforce, which helps with traction, even though some may lack aesthetic value. Carbon fiber is usually used as a lower weight alternative to metal in many racing and performance cars. The Enzo Ferrari features an all carbon fiber body, as do many Formula 1 car bodies, and Time Attack competitions in Japan sometimes features cars with mostly or all carbon fiber bodies as examples of proper legitimate uses of carbon fiber. Additionally, some high-output modifications can shorten engine life, or make the vehicle unsafe and unpredictable during driving.

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Identity crisis

An identity crisis can occur when an individual adds decals, badges or other identifiers from one type of vehicle onto another vehicle of the wrong type, or to a vehicle that does not contain the modifications or special attributes indicated by the accessory; examples could include an Impreza WRX sporting a VTEC sticker, or a Honda CR-X with a TRD (Toyota Racing Development) badge (by eliminating "ota" it would produce Toy Racing Development, a graphic modification done by some Toyota Truck enthusiasts). Honda vehicles, as an example, can often be observed with examples of identity crisis between different versions of the same models, with Type R badges on sedan Civics (the Civic Type R is only available in two-door hatchback form) and older Civics made before the Type R was available.

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Rice burners in popular culture

  • The movie The Fast and the Furious has often been blamed for helping to further "rice" tendencies.
  • The posers in the Poser Mobile commercials for T-Mobile featured a severely riced-out Toyota Corolla driven by the posers.
  • A series of advertisements for the Volkswagen GTI in 2006 featured a German engineer "un-pimping" a Honda Civic, Ford Focus, and Mitsubishi Eclipse that had been "riced out" by their owners by violently destroying them with a wrecking ball, falling cargo container, and a trebuchet.
  • The arcade game Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune has a "ricer" character, Gen Sasaki (Gatchan). His car, a Toyota Celsior, is regarded as a joke in the game, with underbody neon, dark tint, and poorly-designed bodykits (in reality, a subset of Japanese tuner culture of VIP-styled body kits available for many luxury cars in Japan), plus his reluctance to remove interior items like air conditioning, audio equipment, and interior trim to lower the weight of the car. His "ricer" attributes are further reinforced with comments throughout the game, such as his boastful claims of "This car can do 1000 BHP!" and upgrade comments such as "Chrome tails confuse the enemy!"
  • To a certain degree, recent console games like the Need For Speed game series can be considered to be "rice", with some of the attributes listed above existing as part of the gameplay, and sometimes required to complete certain stages. For example, in Need For Speed Underground 2, players needed to attain a certain visual rating to pass certain stages, usually by using body kits, plus the use of devices impractical for street racing (lowrider technology, trunks filled with audio equipment, etc). In Need For Speed: Most Wanted, players have more control over how their cars can be modified, even attaining a sleeper look if so desired.
  • The British TV program Top Gear had a generation race in its seventh season, where a riced-out Peugeot 306 "with £26,000 of mods, including 3 TVs, a Playstation, and over 54 inches of subs,"<ref>Top Gear Season 7, Episode 6 2005.12.27</ref> raced a 1961 Austin Healey Sprite modified for racing shortly before the event. Even though it suffered a 100 BHP gap, the Sprite beat the Peugeot by a second when racing on Prescott Hill.
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References

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