Some of the boy racers were girls and the gleaming dream machines sparkled in the afternoon sun at a recent gathering of dedicated petrolheads. Kieran Fagan reports
THERE wasn't a hubcap in sight. Not one. There were alloys aplenty, big swooping fairings, low slung spoilers, metallic paint jobs shimmering in the late afternoon sun. You couldn't get a bag of groceries into a boot, not with big thumping speakers pumping out rude rap to shake the nearby office windows.
And why does that green, sorry candy apple, with candy red under silver base metallic Seat Ibiza have no door handles? "I like to keep everything flush" explains proud owner student Joelle Fagan, from Raheny. So the double windscreen wipers have been replaced by one big sweeping blade , and the M3 wing mirrors - meant for a BMW - are uber cool.
The Seat headlights have gone - replaced by "Civic Angel Eyes". And now that it is perfect - well it is up for sale. Done and dusted.
Joelle, having spent €20,000 on her dream machine, with little chance of getting much of it back, is looking forward to the next challenge.
A horseshoe of gleaming modified cars throbbed contentedly in the carpark of South Dublin county council.
Except for Pat Maher's four wheel drive green beast which had started life as a Nissan Sunny. It just roared pure power and drained oilfields as the throttle was opened.
Some €40,000 to €50,000 after leaving its Japanese mammy , this turbo-charged intercooler boosted brute could show a clean pair of heels to any and all the Ferraris you could hope to meet.
"I wouldn't do it often," says Pat, from Naas Co Kildare, "but when I see a guy at traffic lights who thinks he can move, I'm tempted to show him what fast is."
Cian McGuirk is standing beside what 18 months ago was a Honda Civic. He admits it has had "serious modifications". He likes to do the bodywork, and gets professional help with the paint. "It is very hard work but I do it because I love it", he says. Expensive too, a car worth maybe €3,000 can end up costing €23,000. He joined an online "modification community" (www.manic-motors.com), which put him in contact with many of the others at this gathering.
The gathering is the brainchild of Dublin-born artist Alan Phelan, one event in the Fused 05 Visual Arts festival run by South Dublin County Council. Phelan is interested in the use of the name "Gordon Bennett" in vernacular English.
Bennett was the playboy owner who created media spectacles for coverage by his newspaper, the New York Herald. Alan Phelan reckons that modified car owners - boy racers - are true descendants of Bennett. Bennett was also the godfather of Irish motor racing.
On a fine evening in Tallaght, the artist contemplated the array of personalised gleaming motors and proud-as-punch owners, and declared himself satisfied. Here more impresario than artist perhaps, and none the worse for that.
Prizes were awarded to Joelle Fagan for best paint job, Alan Dolan best sound and in-car entertainment, Pat Maher for best performance, and best overall in show, Cian McGuirk.