I’m quite a placid sort of person. It takes an awful lot to get under my skin, especially when it comes to the wonderful world of car culture.
When I say that I can appreciate pretty much every facet or subculture of our community, I really do mean it. Because ultimately, even if something isn’t for me personally, I know that it’s bringing someone, somewhere enjoyment. I’m very much of the opinion that cars are meant to be enjoyed and not endured. If you’re not enjoying cars then really, there’s very little point to them.
There is one tiny little thing that gets me though; and I mean tiny. Well, tiny in the sense that it throws me into fits of homicidal rage at every utterance of its incorrect use. It makes me want to scratch my own eyeballs out, eat the contents of my car’s catalytic converter just so I can proceed directly to meeting my maker, so I can ultimately swan dive from outside the pearly gates deep into the deepest layer of hell. Face first.
Of course, there isn’t anything else I could possibly be talking about other than the misuse of the term ‘stance’ in automotive circles.
I’m not quite sure when this happened, but at some point someone misappropriated the term to mean cars with aggressive wheel fitment. Here’s the thing though, and I’m sorry if this is obvious to you, but you will likely share my annoyance anyways. All cars have ‘stance’. Every. Single. One.
From factory economy cars to the latest hypercar, every car has stance. It’s the term which simply and accurately describes how a car sits. Good stance, bad stance, narrow stance, aggressive stance, functional stance, track stance and probably another infinity worth of variants. Of course, just how exactly we feel that a car sits is subjective, but we’re still talking about its stance.
It’s often with amusement – once the initial blind rage has passed, of course – when I read or hear people talking about how they hate ‘stance cars’. So, you hate all cars then? Language is a fickle thing at times, and ultimately the only reason the word stance has been misappropriated is because we’ve allowed it to happen. No more, I say. We need to take it back. From here on out, I beg and urge you to consider how you use the term. Are your friends constantly misusing it? Correct them at every opportunity; be that guy. Does your mother-in-law incorrectly describe your aggressive fitment ride? Hit her with that pedantry stick.
Ultimately, we can only save ourselves from this infliction.
Paddy McGrath
Instagram: pmcgphotos
Twitter: pmcgphotos
paddy@speedhunters.com
OFFICIAL SPEEDHUNTERS SUPPLIERS
Well said! I personally don't understand all that hate against stance: after all, stance spice up car culture quite well.
whoops! meant "tuning trend called stance"
From my experience, the way the wheels of a car fit is referred to as fitment while a stanced car is one with insane camber angle. I personally don't like stanced car but i love a car with good fitment
Well written. The whole thing hurts my head. Thanks for publishing this for people who just don't get it!
Amen
Please refer to this helpful picture hahaha
Add another tick to the one day Dave and Paddy must have a beer column.
"Where did u get your offsets?" Is one i hear quite a bit lol
Speedhunters is where I learned to connect the term "stance" to cars with ridiculous camber. I'm happy to disconnect that meaning from the term, but we need some term for that horrible practice. Any ideas? Maybe "1% ers" or something alluding to the percentage of the tire touching the ground or the percentage of time it take to wear the tires out compared to normal.
@TammyTtroll to each its own, maybe you don't like that style, some people do. a lot of people do, its a culture, if you don't agree, too bad, that's just your opinion.
I don't think it's that big of a deal.
There is a difference between the stance of a vehicle (how it sits overall) and messing with camber settings or wheel fitment.
Thanks, Paddy, glad I'm not the only one. Still chuckling about the title, too.
AmritpalPadda stance is simply how the car sits. Different cars use different stances depending on their purpose such as gassers, show cars, track cars, or hellwhatever cars. Fitment is usually referring to how the wheel fits in the wheel wells of the vehicle.
Finally somebody gets this!
In my country slam cars are a crime...
It's slang word now; it'll be FOREVER associated with aggressivewheel fitment. You have to admire the human language.
Stance is everything.
For me it's "RIMS"! Wheels HAVE rims but rims are NOT wheels!!!!!
IRUCONJI That depends where you come from though. Just like Tires and Tyres
Pfft. It is shorthand. Everyone knows what people mean when they say stance.
For me it's spelling H as "haitch". It's not going away though, so I should deal with it. You should too.
i'm gonna admit (and y'all can hate me for this) but i do tend to use the word stance to mean loads of negative camber and tucked/flush/perfect fitment wheels.
Actually, you could appropriate the word to remove the sting. eg. "We're stanced and we're proud!"
this needs to be read by everyone in the car world.
Amen!
Truth.
Speedhunters Im_JustJim
Back tooooo......?
IyamFernTweets Speedhunters
Have to read it. Self explanatory.
THANK YOU.
but there are so many cool hashtags; #dirtystancing #lordofthestance #stanceswithwolves #flashstance #savethelaststance #stancingwiththestars #stancingonice #stanceofthesugarplumfairy #stancestancerevolution, and one especially for you, Paddy; #riverstance
I've had someone ask me if i took a class on "stance" and how I knew the correct offset, wheel width and tire size to get
While I agree to an extent, does the same apply to "tuned" or "tuner" cars? All cars are tuned for something: power, reliability, efficiency, handling, safety. it just depends on how they're tuned.
Stance is just that. A vehicles current setup. I noticed this change of use as well one day when searching for slammed xxx google images and at the top of suggestions it had a slammed then stanced button for suggestions. Google is ur friend until it tries to sway you!
It's pretty convenient. What other word combines high offset, negative camber, dirty nasty low, etc? We have track cars, show cars, rally cars, drift cars, drag cars, muscle cars, rat rods, lowriders, missles, vip, gassers... What do we call this look?
The beauty of the ever evolving English language; words are constantly being created and spellings and meanings changed too. Try reading Chaucer in it's original English.
Don't get me wrong here Paddy, I do agree with you on the most part as far as the general idea in this.. However, I think you have sort of oversimplified the issue in your last paragraph, specifically when you rant about the people who say they "hate stance cars". Yes, all cars have stance, but some car builders place much higher emphasis on having whatever they might consider to be a "perfect" stance. Of course, this all subjective and what is perfection to someone might be utter garbage to someone else, but that is what makes car culture so incredible and diverse. Would you not agree that some cars have better stance than others, or that a cars stance can be improved upon? There are a lot of highly successful aftermarket companies that would beg to differ.
Now if someone does want to make statements such as hating stance cars, I think a solution to the problem of generalization you speak of would be to say something like how they hate stanced cars instead.
I hope you can appreciate the sarcasm here, I still <3 you Paddy.
What a waste of time this was.
difflocked_mees This post needs to go viral in the entire worldwide car community
chrisMmarino too true
Paddy,
The rage you feel I share. And from that stems the cause. Slamming a car with no regard for camber alignment. Just to get that wicked poke. Puke. Its when you have a basic person with no knowledge of suspension tuning wanting to chimp it like the others they see. So yes this. 1000% this. It needed to be said.
Respect.
jayemyau
"The Trend Formerly Known As Stance"
Sorry may have been too soon but that's what your comment made me think of
You harp on about liking all facets of car culture, yet fail to recognise that "stance" has become yet another "sub culture/scene".
Yes it started off as an adjective, it has morfed into as retarded as it is, a scene all of its own
I agree, but what does this mean for stanceworks haha, 95% of the cars in the forums are the low, cambered, wide sort, can I use that forum if my car is grocery stance?
"Stance" is just a more modern interpretation of the word "rice".
I definitely preferred it when it simply meant an alteration of the stance from stock, instead of simply wrecking your camber, stretching your tires, and trying to hide your rims inside your fender like a boy to his mother's skirts. I'm all for taking it back.
for me stance is like a word describing the position of the wheels. if a car has good position of them, let's say a lamborghini or a ferrari for example, i can say hey this ferrari has a good stance! I don't think it is the term of describing the massive stance cars that are lowered to the ground. for me the word "stance" is a thing of interpretation. so to each it's own.
'Show' Cars are built for show
'track' cars are built for track
'stance' cars are built to stance.
you're picking a feature or purpose and building towards it. I hate the stance culture but I'll be damned if you're gonna try and tell me that people are using the term wrong when in actual fact they are using it perfectly normally.
You want to talk about words that are overused or misused, lets talk about 'immaculate' or 'clean' or 'straight'. I've seen more rust buckets and cut/shut shitboxes claiming to be any or all of those three terms.
Speedhunters kicking the Hornets nest I see
People getting confused with Stance and Slammed. And thinking that Stance and Slammed are the same thing.
lmao hahaha ''Does your mother-in-law incorrectly describe your aggressive fitment ride? Hit her with that pedantry stick.''
But if we don't label styles or focus your efforts into a label then we get more diversity so who cares what its called, enjoy cars!
Stance car is built for the sake of having a certain stance. While all the other type of cars have their stance merely as a consequence of their purpose. Therefore I find it reasonable to call certain cars stanced
apex_DNA Spot on,lad.
That escort looks awesome. Feature car?
Seriously..? You know full well what people mean when they use the word 'stance/d' to describe a car you spud. How can you be so simple to think that people using that word in that way are refering to the way every single fucking car sits?
You and your fellow 'speedhunters' are to bloody blame!!
How the fuck did this idiots rant make it past the editor?
Speedhunters exactly how I feel about the term "stance"!
Oh Sh*t, Paddy (@pmcgphotos) just started a semantics debate on a page with an open forum. *closes laptop*, *unplugs router*, *burns house*, *moves to countryside*, *becomes full time spoon whittler*.
While I agree with your point to an extent Paddy, the term 'Stance Car' has been so synonymous with a specific type of car, that it has become it's most common usage. So 'Stance' has become a Noun for a subset of cars. Whereas it's usage as an adjective is still valid, and in use fairly commonly, or at least it is with me ("check out the stance on that time attack car..").
If your issue with 'Stance' being used as a noun for a specific subset of cars, personally I think it's pretty fitting, since in most instances it's the defining factor and sometimes the entire purpose of the build. And TBH, you guys are probably as guilty of it's spread amongst car culture as anyone else. Take a look at this and tell me there isn't a pattern in the articles: http://www.speedhunters.com/tag/stance/
Are you "like" retarded??
Well clickbaited sir. One could almost believe that you actually care.
rook56 his articles get worse and worse... pictures are always on point but his writing is complete and utter trash. how he still gets to publish his tripe is beyond me, I`d much prefer his photos no words, or perhaps Dino or Mike would add the content and it would be so much better
RickyVasquez A bunch of bros that hardpark their cars because they scrap their oilpans on every single bump and cry for attention in Instagram can hardly be called a culture. Community? Sure. But culture is entirely different from saying "DR00pped LOL! HATERZ BE HATERZ MUH CAR IS ARTZ LO AN SLO!".
this post made no points and was a complete waste of time
Totally agree with this article. I remember not so long ago reading in a Hot Rod magazine from the 90s and stance was a widely used term back then as well, with the exception that they weren't talking about IF the car had stance, but how its stance was.
Keep 'em coming, Paddy
Also: yes, that was an incredibly nerdy response, to a nerdy article haha.
Thank you. I understand that language evolves, but when you take a word that already means something in a certain circle, and tried to give it a new meaning, thats just wierd. I get annoyed when people say "rims" when they mean "the entire wheel", not just the outside edge of it.
I don't think thats the point. We know that stance has multiple meanings and can use context clues to figure out which is which, but younger/newer people (especially as time goes on) could hear the word stance and only think one thing.
RickyVasquez In terms of style I'm fine with it and agree with you. But in terms of physics this is very a matter of fact not opinion. Tire grip is the most important factor in performance. We just need a term for those who tune a "performance" car by removing all the grip. It is not even safe for other motorists. These are facts.
donkyyyyyy Leno says it himself!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UonisqLOnXo
(3 some odd minutes in)
Robo_No1 apply some cold water... Nice!
MatthewBortot Seriously dude, poor show. Vulgarity has no place on a site that you willingly clicked on, and willingly read an article about, and willingly commented on.
If you got nothing nice to say, then don't say anything.
Yes, but does it Stance?
OfficialWCP Most RWB Porsches are used for show, track, and stance.
HunterHunted The answer is always yes.
at this point though its just slang, language is a constantly evolving thing and should be allowed to change. so yes, when referring to "stance" as a word without context it means how the car sits. people can and do, still use this definition among educated audiences, but if half the culture wants to use it as a term meaning a car with specifically aggressive stance, and people still understand each other, who's to say its wrong. its like when dictionaries add words like "yolo" and "selfie", these used to not be considered proper words at all, but are a slang that pretty much everyone understands and uses fluently, so then they become real, recognized words
Ujean Sorry to nitpick but "slammed" doesn't equate to aggressive wheel offset, width and stretched tires either. Slammed just means as low as possible.
IRONWOLF RD I wish I could've come up with that...
Stuff "stance" I got "purpose"
so, can someone explain 'slammed' word for me ?!
Function over form. Form is merely a side-effect of function.
Hi.
FunctionFirst and they lived happily ever after
Oh no did Paddy just troll us all...
How do you think British cigarettes feel?
The fuck is wrong with vulgarity?
Paddy doesn't like people using stance as a noun, MatthewBortot doesn't like Paddy's view on the subject, and I don't like it when people don't have the self control to refrain from becoming upset by the use of simple, single syllable words, which really carry zero meaning in 2016. So chill the fuck out. There's censored F1 forums for uppity folk who are scared of a little vulgarity.
Twitch_6 He called him an idiot. Instead of delivering his view on "stance". Plus he sounds super angry at these bloody speedhunters, despite taking the time to read/follow/like/comment.
That's like going to a restaurant you don't like, eating a main course and then calling the chef an idiot because you didn't like the fact that everyone calls them chips as they should actually be known as french fries.
Twitch_6 lol.
Twitch_6 Zingg!!!! Well played, sir.
MOU89 A really low car. It's 'slammed' to the ground
yes yes yes 100x yes man. All cars have stance! I'm not into slammed show cars much, mostly a track built car fan but all cars have stance. I've seen threads on forums called aggressive fitment thread and these guys get mad when someone with some nice wide sport tire shows up but isn't slammed. Like that's aggressive to me! A slammed car isn't aggressive in my opinion, because what's aggressive about going slow or getting stuck on speed bumps? I know you appreciate all cars paddy and I try to man, but the verbage people use to describe the current range of car builds annoys me to no end!
gophermonkey ahh but even you are using the slang wrong. Stance has evolved to mean cars that sit low, tuck or stretch tire and have fitment that's poor for performence, and aggressive stance means about the same as well. It means a car that can't aggressively operate because it'll get stuck on a curb, but the show slammed car crowd considers that aggressive.
Language definitely is ever evolving and I think that's what paddy is trying to take back. He wants all cars to have stance, he wants intermingling and the love to go to everyone. Because right now when most people post there cars up and talk about their stance they get slammed by e-trolls.
@knobhead your name is well earned.
rook56 you must not of read his past articles that go along a similar theme of everyone needs to get along. He doesn't have to convince you he cares, he's allowed to write anything he wants and even left speedhunters for a time. He's one of the best and if you doubt it that's ok, you just miss out and I'm cool with that.
@mememe rook56 I enjoyed his writing far greater then yours and paddy makes a point. He's an OG speedhunter has built a life off this site and on this site and will continue to do both, go e-thug elsewhere.
Robo_No1 Hence why he's making the argument to take it back. Stance has been under attack since day one because the old school builders never let the word change. It's an online trend that youth has spread out. You even see sites like stance nation try to squeeze in track cars more and more because they know stance is more then what it's been generalized as. Let's expand our world and use of this word and escape the narrow definition it's been hatefully narrowed down to. We are all guilty of it's misuse so let's go forward on a better note.
MatthewBortot no it has multiple meanings, you're 12. Calm down and stop rage e-thugging.
HLB Ujean what is currently considered a stance car isn't very aggressive either though. Purely my opinion.
OfficialWCP clean has almost become a generic insult at this point. I can't think of anything nice to say about his car so I'll just call it clean...
@Nic don't cry boy.
@TammyTtroll hardparkers works fine for me.
@ericlastname hardparkers do not equal aggressive. What's aggressive about a car that will get stuck on a 1 inch speed bump? Steve Mcqueen couldn't aggressively do anything in that.
2xthefun HLB Ujean Well by "aggressive" I just mean wheel width, ride height, camber and offset that are altered from the factory settings to the point that it impacts on driveability and practicality to some degree.
Twitch_6 well considering it was the British who started that trend....from a bundle of sticks, to cigarettes, to...yeah, whatever.
My comment was about this article only. I DO read and like his stuff which I figure he can't actually care about something so petty.
Speedhunters "everything is awesome" mentality is another subject...
My last month paycheck was for 11000 dollars... All i did was simple online work from comfort at home for 3-4 hours/day that I got from this agency I discovered over the internet and they paid me for it 95 bucks every hour...
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I always thought the word "Stance" means "Wanker".
bluestreaksti I'd never do such a thing.
Twitch_6 Sweet.
I couldnt agree more, along with other fucked up variants of terms used by the new generation of trend followers in the car scene, to sound cool. Stance as you say, simply means how a car sits, not 'my car has broken suspension and fucked up wheel fitment that doesnt fit properly in the name of style.
rook56 I think some of satire has flown clean over people's heads...
Paddy!
When people say they hate "stanced cars" they mean they are hating on people who lower their car way beyond the limit of useability and fitting tires that simply cannot be stretched enough to stay on a wheel for any longer period of time.
This is what "stanced" means
Lmao
Amen to the Function philosophy!! If it werent for people like us, the car industry would be a much darker place.......
@Amintore seriously?
nobody is safe from the stance insanity, not even speedhunters
@Amintore Someone didn't read the article!
Anyone who isn't a 12 year old already knows this and uses them interchangeably.
You know exactly what someone means when they say they dislike stance. It's not necessary to specify. That's the point of slang.
Also, the fact that someone enjoys something doesn't leave it off the table for criticism.
More annoying than stance is people who claim to "love all facets of car culture". Cringe.
Would they say the same for an open header and primered civic dx doing a ricer fly by? Doubt it, elitism is a natural social reaction.
Just write about cars and events (journalism). Can't stand these self righteous editorials (blog posts). I guess I just can't appreciate all facets of writing. *tips fedora*.
Actually - I used to say "aggressive negative camber" - but I'd mention it, and lose anybody I was talking to....
and then I'd say "stance" - and ppl would reply "with the wheels all crooked, yea, that's cool"
it's like the minute we define a term, a culture redefines it
I mean, we call ppl "white" and "black" - which aren't even races - humans are dumb - simply put - LOL
If that's the case, then remove the link on this page named "Stance". No flame intended, I am just being that guy who wants to take the word Stance back.
To hone logic, supported with open minds and a lot to learn. For logic that is already extensive, balance it with humility
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