Five Things That Should Never Be on Your Car

Sometimes you’ll be strolling through a Parts America or O’Reilly and find yourself in a gallery of chrome slogans and plastic accessories drenched in stick-on flames. This entire section is anathema to a well-dressed car and should be exited immediately as you mutter rejoinders to yourself for even considering the stick-on “Type-R” badge for your Corolla.

Cars should be clean, with nary an extraneous sticker, wing, or badge. Here are a few things you should never have on your car or should remove immediately as you realize your lapse in judgment.

• Aftermarket Spoilers – If your car didn’t come from the factory with a spoiler, it doesn’t need the downforce a rear wing provides. (Many cars that do come from the factory with spoilers don’t really need them, either.) If you’ve added a wing to your car you’ve not only embarrassed yourself, you’ve also negatively affected the aerodynamics and weight of your vehicle.

Exceptions: Legitimately tuned-up performance cars or cars that have undergone complete visual overhauls, especially in South Florida or California.

• Bumper Stickers – They aren’t funny and nobody cares about your religious affiliation, unless you telling us you’re a Wican means you give it up really easily. Also, in the entire history of democracy, no citizen was swayed to vote by a bumper sticker.

Exception: “Support your local precinct” or tasteful window stickers of military affiliation.

• Body Graphics, vinyl or otherwise – Unless your car is an open-engined hot rod, there is no need for flames on your vehicle, especially not the strange little fireballs seen under the driver’s side windows of Mexican-helmed minivans. Your car is not a Trapper Keeper.

Exceptions: – Show cars and race carts; Ambulances.

• Flags – Having a flag across your hood is tacky and not a little dangerous. Flying American flags from the back of a vehicle is a trend that is fading, thank god, but if you are one of the remaining hold outs, please put it away.

Exceptions: Puerto Ricans, on parade day only.

• Aftermarket badges – Back when I was in to the Honda tuning scene, I knew several folks who bought all the parts to upgrade their American Civic Si into the equivalent of the British or Japanese Civic Type-R, from swapping the engine and transmission with actual Type-R engines to importing the body kits and wheels. Those cars were awesome—as long as they kept the Si badges on. Let that be a lesson: If even those Civic tuners couldn’t pull off a fake badge, you certainly can’t convince us that your Ford Fiesta is turbocharged.

Exceptions: None.