Motormouth: The desire to zhng my car is addictive, but expensive and ultimately pointless

I want to modify my car to make it go faster or at least look sportier, but I also need to feel less stupid about wasting money on dubious performance parts.    

[Story by guest columnist S.F Yeo]

If you thirst, a cup of water will settle it. If you feel you're cold, a warm blanket from the love of your life will often correct the problem. 

But vehicular performance is quite another kind of animal, or rather, beast. Though without corporeal form, the need for high/higher performance belongs in the league of substance abuse - right up there with nicotine, heroin and glue.

Like an itch, it cannot be helped. The more you scratch, even to the point of drawing blood, the worse it gets, and then you die to scratch some more.

Which is partly why we run about like hopeless junkies from one performance mod to another.

In the meantime, the snake oil salesmen of the aftermarket accessories business rub their palms with glee at our damning plight. Always, they have a shiny new part, a novel automotive idea, a groundbreaking product - each of which promises to work better than the one before it. 

Why are we petrolheads in such an awful hurry? Do we really need exotic magnets to comb fuel molecules along an unknown axis, tinsel blades to swirl air as it enters the engine, and yards of piping worth near its weight in gold?

And for the car-modification equivalent of dropping the atomic bomb on Atoll, there's the unholy trinity of turbocharging, tuning, and engine-swapping.

Unlike geeks hooked on making their computers run faster (a much more straightforward affair), car freaks like me must strive against a most evil paradox - the faster bits that aren't useless are mostly illegal, will void your vehicle warranty and, most certainly, break your bank along the workshop way.  

Why do we subject ourselves to this? Why the expense, longing and heartbreaks scraping the proverbial bottom of the barrel for the chance of any little crack in the abovementioned logic? 

Is the car not costly enough? Is fuel not dear, and parking not precious? 

Ah bengs around the world are addicted to "fast and furious" car modifications.

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