Matt Black Malaise

The American rat rods started the matt black style way back in the day, as the general idea was to focus on the engineering and racing aspects while giving the finger to looks.

In recent years, the Japanese revive the look with Rauh Welt being arguably the workshop most associated with the style. If you have been following the Japanese car scene, you would have seen Rauh Welt's matt black Porsches and S15 at one point or the other.

I like this look to a certain extent and some people have carried out the look well in Singapore, such as:

The local R35 photographed by Vanq that caused a storm in Singapore, percolated over to NAGTROC and even Speedhunters.

I even have a friend that sprayed his S15 matt black a la Rauh Welt and given that the guy thrash his car regularly at Sepang, you know the looks are suitably cool.

This Porsche Carrera isn't half bad either.

Performance cars going fast, looking tough and incognito. That's all good.

But when I see Kia Ceratos, Honda Crossroads and other econoboxes doing the look, with CHROME RIMS adding to the insult, you just know that it became just too much of a good thing.