It’s a small wonder

By Jeannie O’Sullivan
Times Staff Writer

Christopher Ngo, 20, has an alter ego: his black 2005 Toyota Scion tC. It’s not quite the same car Ngo bought back in December. A new air-intake system and exhaust header have made it run just a little faster. Soon, a new muffler will make it roar a little louder. After the performance details are in place, Ngo will illuminate the interior and undercarriage with blue lights.
Like Ngo, it appears dark and brooding on the outside, but it is filled with inner light and explosive potential.
"The main thing is that a car is like who you are," said Ngo, an account manager from North Philadelphia. "My car tells a story about me."
Time, money and passion are no objects in the tricked-out, tuned-up and pimped sports-compact culture, which has roared eastward from its West Coast origins with a vengeance. A growing crop of auto-accessory retailers and wholesalers offers innumerable ways to customize, alter and enhance a vehicle’s performance and image.
Ngo and about 15,000 other sports-compact enthusiasts will head to the Specialty Equipment Market Association’s (SEMA) International Auto Salon in Atlantic City, where 130 manufacturers will flaunt the latest in performance enhancements, restyling gadgets, video and electronics equipment, and about 200 new models of cars. The three-day trade show starts Friday, May 20, and will be open to consumers on Saturday afternoon and all day on Sunday.
Ngo and a few friends are making a weekend out of it.
"That’s how into it we are," said Ngo.
When Ngo and his friends get together, it’s usually among a fleet of Mazdas, Hyundais and Hondas. Each has been tweaked, tuned, painted and primped to suit individual personalities.
None looks even remotely like any other, which is precisely the point, according to Peter MacGillivray, SEMA’s vice president of marketing.
"The passion, drive and spark are fueled by personalization," said MacGillivray. "Our culture is about having fifty different options."
The diverse sports-compact scene — MacGillivray expects that about 21 percent of the show’s turnout will be female — showed up on SEMA’s radar in the last decade and added an entirely new element to the trade organization’s scope, once primarily composed of the sport-utility, hotrod and classic-car industries. Now the sports-compact industry has SEMA busily serving the manufacturers and retailers of a $4.1 billion industry.
MacGillivray traces its roots to the mid-1970s energy crisis, when gas-guzzling station wagons made way for smaller, more fuel-efficient Hondas and Datsuns. In the ’80s, mammoth trucks and SUVs emerged in the era of excess as yuppies sought bigger and better. Compact castoffs fell into the hands of the learner-permit crowd.
The overseas aftermarket auto industry, burgeoning in Asian countries at the time, beckoned the young drivers desperate to make the hand-me-downs cool.
"If you’re a high-school kid, the last thing you wanted to do was be seen driving your mom’s Honda Civic," said MacGillivray.
The mainstream media caught on and has pandered wildly after this new crop of 16-to-24-year-old car enthusiasts, who regularly tune into MTV’s Pimp My Ride and street-racing movies like Gone in 60 Seconds and The Fast and the Furious.
The hype pumped dollars right back into the industry. Business soared higher for auto-accessory retailer Mike Cojan after The Fast and the Furious debuted. Each day, Cojan, who owns No Limits in the Franklin Mills mall, serves an all-ages parade of enthusiasts who stop in to check out his stacks of tires, walls filled with rims, and counters packed with video and stereo equipment.
On weekend nights, the Franklin Mills parking lot serves as a venue for the sports-compact scene, making official its arrival in Northeast Philadelphia.
"Kids once dreamed about being football or basketball players," said Cojan. "Now, this is their dream." ••
The SEMA International Auto Salon will take place May 20-22 at the Atlantic City Convention Center, 1 Miss America Way, in Atlantic City. For information, visit www.sema.org or call the center at 1-609-449-2000.
Reporter Jeannie O’Sullivan can be reached at 215-354-3038 or osullivanj@phillynews.com