My Midlife Crisis Corolla Is Fast, Furious, and Fully Modded
July 1, 2026 at 03:30PMGrowing up in the Bay Area in the ’90s, my experience of Japanese-import car culture was limited to observation—sitting in a car next to some souped-up Toyota or Honda that revved at a red light and then left us in the dust. We called them “rice rockets,” a phrase I was never quite comfortable with. (I’m Asian American, after all.) Ky-Phong Tran’s piece on the joys of modifying cars goes further than nostalgia: He argues that Asian Americans didn’t just participate in import car culture during those years—they created it. And when The Fast and the Furious came along, it erased them from their own story. This is a short yet rewarding read about identity, belonging, and the magic of a car that can take you back in time.
Now when I hit a loopy freeway interchange at night and my GR Corolla carves through the turn, it’s 1996 and I’m cruising in my CRX, getting pho in San Gabriel or rushing to a flyer party at Naga in Long Beach. My old Alpine face-off stereo plays O.D.B. rapping on Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy.” The Pioneer subwoofer in the trunk thumps that iconic bass like a heartbeat. Of course, the sunroof is open. I’m 21 years old again, and the whole world is still in front of me.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2026/07/01/corolla-import-car-culture/
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