Top 10 Signs You're a Euro Bro

Top 10 Ways to Spot a Euro Bro

So you just bought a BMW/Mercedes/Audi and want to look like a bad ass, huh?

(Picture of a black BMW I found on google)

You see that shiny new $100,000 BMW M5 barreling down the road with its paper plates being piloted by an executive and think to yourself, "Damn that's bad ass."  Indeed, it is.  But you can't afford it.  So what do you do?  You buy a second (or many times third/fourth/fifth/etc.) hand BMW 3-Series for $5,000!  Sweet.  You've worked hard saving up for a down payment on a bad ass BMW. Now you can be a part of the "baller" club.  All of your friends will be impressed when they see you roll up in this fine german automobile.  And I agree, it is very cool you can get a lot of car for little money this way. 

But it's not enough for some.  Some of these new owners soon come to the realization it's never enough.  You start browsing forums for your car researching all the cool mods you can buy for under $100.  You post questions helping you in your search for things like super wide wheels and tires, blacked out lights, the best exhaust or the best intake, cheap $20 HID kits, and second-hand roof racks.  You know--to use for your bad ass looking signature picture for your bad ass looking euro car.  Badassedness to the max.

These euro bro mods are not only a downgrade performance and functionality, but are usually in poor taste, but worse yet are often irreversible.  These cars often make their way to those "no job no problem" type used car lots in low-income neighborhoods where the next eurobro eyes down its next victim. It's usually someone cross-shopping a 2003 Chrysler 300 or 1999 BMW 323i. Careful. Don't let your jewelry dangle and scratch the paint.  Ah fvck it.  Let it all hang out. 

Top 10 ways to know if you're a euro bro

1) Roof rack

Your signature pic is of your slammed car with an unused roofrack which is never or seldom used.  Why why why is the defining identifier of a euro bro car is an unused roof rack.  Extra eurobro points if said roof rack has stickers up the wazoo on the front wind deflector.  Even more points awarded if said stickers are: Stance nation, euro bro brands, two fingers and one pinky in the whatever, or stance nation or whatever the hell that is. They don't realize that nobody's impressed with the roof rack pics and it substantially lowers your fuel economy. If you are an avid mountain bike rider, then sure.  Whatever.  But these guys spend most of their time hard parking at their local bro meets. The roof rack, in their eyes, just makes their parking that much harder.  

2) Vinyl wrap

Ahh, the ubiquitous black vinyl wrap.  "Is thatta wrap bro?" usually followed up with a quick touch of pre-greased KFC fingers. The official mod of "I wanted a black car but the only one I could find was a salvaged craigslist example in "college-girl-white."  No can do.  Needs to be black.  Add points for stripes.

3) Stickers

Sticker culture.  This one is a carryover from the JDM crowd.  Yes you know the cars I'm talking about.  The ones with the Kmart trophies that attend car "shows".  The ones with the stickers down the leading edge of the door--ON THE DOOR--hah.  Those stickers are now popularly displayed on the back window bragging of all the sh1tty parts they tacked onto their car. The stickers are usually on the rear window and tilted sideways for increased bad-assedness effect. They're so large you can read them from far away. So you know "what's under the hood bro."  It shows their accomplishment.  Add points for ///MFest windshield banners. Or colored ///M stripes on the kidney grills or other aftermarket/misplaced/fake emblems.

4) Plastidip

Yeah. You know who you are. Plasti-dipping the sh1t out of everything that's plasti-dippable. Wheels, grills, emblems, the ENTIRE CAR.  It's a quick way to make your car look like a steaming pile of sh1t.  It's usually peeling and bubbling too.   In subtle moderation, I suppose it could be OK. Like maybe one or two trim pieces or emblems here and there that flow with a tasteful theme of the car, and of course properly prepped prior to application.  But don't go overboard here.  And whatever you do, DON'T DO THE WHEELS.  Tack city.

5) HIDS BRO

Yeah.  The cramming, stuffing, and jamming of $25 chinese generic ebay HID kits into factory housings that weren't designed for it. Or worse yet, in aftermarket housings.  The official mod of "I didn't have the patience nor the budget to buy a car that actually came with these stock so this is the cheapest way to join the club and look rich"  You plop your sh1tty "HID" kit into your yellowing faded headlights and pull up to a 2016 BMW/Lexus/Mercedes with factory HID/LED and think you're in the same camp. Cut from the same cloth.  Brothers of sorts.

No.  You're not.  Nowhere close.

Don't mistake your giant 8,000k blue hotspots right in front of your vehicle as effective lighting. The color of your light alone does not make it good lighting. Lighting is supposed to light up objects in front of you while driving, not the immediate 5 feet of road directly in front of your car. Your blue dim spotlight is nowhere near the level of a factory halogen system, let alone a factory HID/LED system.  Do your lighting right or not at all.  I can spot your cheap ass dangerous lights immediately with its often mismatching blue/purple hues.  And usually because it's because it's blinding me cause light's going everywhere except where it should.  You don't have "HIDs" bro. You have poor taste.  Stop listing "HIDs" in your mod list if you are using some generic tacky crap.  You do not get to brag about your $25 setup. A quality lighting setup can be retrofitted for as little as $200.  Don't cheap out here. It's painfully obvious.

6) Large cheap wheels and tires

You've seen it.  Large (often 19") cheap black aftermarket wheels with chrome lip with cheap rubber band generic tires.  Or any large black/blacked out wheels in general.  Why? Why? WHY?  Your rent-a-wheels are impressing nobody and you certainly have degraded the ride and handling characteristics of your car. You took a once classy car and made it look like like a South Central LA used car dealer no job no problem type of used car.  

7) Colorfully painted brake hardware (usually black or red)

This one goes across all car sub-cultures, not unique to euro bro'ing.  But I'll mention it anyway.  If your calipers are large, factory, or other big brake upgrade then no worries there.  But why on earth would you paint your factory little runt of a caliper bright red? You are only drawing attention to your 10" brakes in your 19" wheels. You've just turned ridiculousness up two notches. 

8) Stancing and slamming

A subtle performance enhancing drop or proper setup is fine. But most euro bros don't stop there. "Needs a drop MAN."  or "DAT WHEEL GAP BRO"  But I can't even fit two fingers in there.  Still... "DAT WHEEL GAP BRO."  Euro bros are not satisfied until their wheels are so deep into the fenders that it requires a call to their local "FENDER ROLLER BRO" Your YEAH HES ON ALL THE FORUMS MAN HE DID A GOOD JOB guy is immediately called to take a baseball bat (literally) to your car.  Crunched the fenders, flaked paint off? NO PROB BRO. It's a badge of HONOR.  Then there's the stancing.  The ultimate trying to look bad ass mod.  Ultra low. Ultra camber. Ultra gangster.  Don't fvck with me bro. My car is touching the ground, my fenders have more bumps then a teenagers face, and my wheels are so leaned. Now excuse me while I pull up my pants.

No matter what anybody says, stancing your car is dangerous.

Your excessively negative camber means you are literally riding on a smaller amount of tire. This means less grip, obviously.  

OH BUT MORE CAMBER MEANS MORE GRIP IN TURNS. Yeah... to a point.  Besides you are not doing any "turning" in your stanced car.  That's for track cars.  What you are doing is daily driving.  

Your negative camber coupled with sh1tty generic rubber band tires and tiny suspension travel will make your car unstable over every day driving situations, especially in the wet.

Do whatever you want at your car shows winning your plastic trophies, but don't endanger the lives and property of others.  

Extra points if you take an otherwise high-performance car/icon and turn it into a steaming pile of sh1t by slamming and stancing it.  Think M3, S2000, 911.

9) Blacking out of lights and windows

Yeah, man.  My car is so mean.  You see my lights?  Exactly.  There are none. Who needs lights when you're as bad ass as me?  

Don't black out your lights, folks.  It looks dumb and you can't see sh1t. And worse yet, people can't see YOU.

Also please stop blacking out your windows. This is not typically super offensive on its own but it's ridiculous looking when combined with all the other mods on this list.  Unless you drive a twin turbo 1,000hp Lingenfelter Corvette, your blacked out windows are not impressing anyone. Just an FYI.   Extra euro bro points for tinted out windshields.

10) Driving style

It's already bad enough that drivers of stock/new european cars are seen as giant douchewads when driving through traffic.  Don't make this perception worse by cutting and weaving through traffic in your loud blacked out slammed monstrosity of a car. No one is impressed by your Nexen tires, 43 pounds of plastidip, loud awful rap music, and overdrawn bank accounts.  Drive like a normal person please. And certainly don't park in a handicap spot if you aren't legally allowed to.

Are there any euro bro mods out there that you'd like to discuss?