Fine Tuned
Beyond Home Entertainment (2010)
R4 DVD
Reviewer:
Bob Estreich
“Tuning”
used to mean carefully adjusting a car’s engine to produce the best results.
Now it is more of a whole-car concept involving engine, suspension, bodywork,
trim and paint. We have already looked at some examples of the products of
European car tuners in the German series Fazscination
and assorted Top Gears. Now let’s have a look at the U.S. equivalents.
First,
though, this show is not another “Pimp My Ride”, where the crew seem determined
to hang as many bits off a standard car as possible. Fine Tuned takes cars from
worthy but cash-strapped people and then do them up to a luxury level. If power
is what is needed then the engine will be worked up. The car will be stripped
and repainted and retrimmed. A few nice goodies like
Pioneer sound systems will be fitted. The result will be a car beyond the
owner’s dreams and often a worthy competitor to the European cars.
Presenters
are Tyson Beckford, whose main job is to ripple his muscles so we can admire
his tattoos, and “Lucky” Jay Hess who still believes that a Mohawk hairstyle is
cool. Neither are
capable of wearing their caps the right way round. The real work is done by a
team of experts. By “experts” I mean people who do not do mechanical
adjustments with a hammer. They drill the hole and the part fits. This is a
skill I greatly admire, since my mechanical work often involved impact
adjustment of stubborn parts. It is their skill that allows them to fit a
turbocharger to a car that supposedly had one but didn’t. The owner was ripped
off and his car was developing a lowly 90 horsepower at the wheels. By the time
the team had finished it was putting out 200 horsepower thanks to a huge single
turbocharger instead of the two smaller ones usually fitted.
Every
now and then one of the experts will take the time to show us why he uses a
particular part or how he does a certain job, and to the mechanically inclined
this is fascinating. There is a certain amount of product placement and
gratuitous advertising but that’s only to be expected when so many parts are
donated.
There
is just as much skill going into the trim and upholstery. The girls who do this
work carry a tremendous responsibility – you may not see the engine very often,
but you are going to see the upholstery every day. Their work carries as much
importance in the finished car as the mechanical work.
The
cars come out beautifully painted and finished and with a level of class that
you just couldn’t afford in a production car. They are truly one-offs that the
deserving owners can be proud of.
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