Add More Horsepower!

Welcome to the second edition of Ricepiration. Today, we’re going to discuss about the infamous, and ingenious, contraption of all time…

The GT-Wing. In all my life, I have never seen a such spectacular modification on a real-life taxi before, and to our surprise, this came from Surabaya.

The GT-Wing, which could be measured to be as popular as the Dr. Martens a decade ago, is a quintessential part of our nation’s ricing culture. Is it all because of downforce? Speed? Aerodynamics? Drag coefficient? No… The answer is simple: Style. But when you have more money than a mere cab driver, options are laid down in front of you. GT-Wings of various shapes, sizes, or materials will be uncovered before your very eyes.

Let’s go back to logic and physics for a moment as I’ll take this chance to once again, provide a simple and hopefully understandable explanation to the lesser-minded riceboys.

A spoiler was intentionally made to provide extra downforce to a car. Extra downforce means more grip, more stability, improved handling, and the list goes on provided that the spoiler is put on the right place.

An FR car, a front-mounted engine, with a rear wheel drive system, for example would be a very good example. The rear wheels propel your car, so it must have better traction. Not that every single FR car needs one, but a well-designed back spoiler would push the car’s end towards the ground, thus providing better traction.

An FF car, such as the Toyota Vios above is propelled by the front wheels. Using our logic above, the front wheels should have a better traction with the ground. But what if the rear-installed wing pushes your back end down, and resulted on an uneven weight distribution? Your front nose goes up a bit, and you lose traction in the process. So where should these humongous wings be installed on an FF car? It would be on the front hood. But that would simply look ridiculous even for a riceboy.

These ideal conditions, of course, will most likely work if you have the right car with the right performance, the right speed, the right conditions, and the right performance-oriented engineering involved in it. This concludes that installing ridiculous wings on a simple and modest 1.5L compact sedan is useless. And that is what you can conceive from the mind of a riceboy… Uselessness.

But I do find a use for those GT-Wings, though. You can dress your car for the annual Shopping Cart Halloween party without needing anything more. Good luck winning the crown!

Photo by Kingston.