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What Is The “Stance” Movement?

Traditional art is all about the ideals of balance, symmetry, and correct proportions. For millennia, these principles have defined how westerners conceive beauty. They’re reflected in artwork like The Last Supper and the Renaissance sculpture known simply as David. Plato believed they expressed divine truths. Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and Mozart felt that way as well, and incorporated them into everything they created.

None of those gentlemen would have thought much of stanced cars, then. In fact, a lot of people don’t think much of “stance,” or, as it’s also known, “slammed,” or “hellaflush.” These terms refer to the practice of taking lowered cars to an absurd extreme. Here are some of the ways its aficionados apply this style to their vehicles:

• The body is dropped so close to the street that going over a speed bump is impossible without ripping out the oil pan.
• Oversized rims are matched with narrow tires that are stretched over the metal like rubber bands. The camber of the wheels is adjusted so that the bottoms of the rims jut out, so that they form an upside down “V” shape. This reduces the contact the tires make with the road, so that there’s only an inch or so of rubber that actually touches the blacktop at any time.
• Car handles and other external parts are modified so they sit deep within the vehicle’s body, further developing the “flush” theme.
• The result of all this modification is a vehicle that’s, at best, semi-drivable, and in fact is no longer street-legal in most municipalities.

What Is The “Stance” Movement?

It is also impossible to go up a graded driveway, turn the steering wheel more than a few inches, or stop safely unless the car is driven very slowly. Also, cops hate these things and generally pull them over on sight.


That’s the question everybody who’s not into this stuff asks. Frankly, I don’t know. I don’t get it. Stancing a car destroys it, for all intents and purposes, and adds nothing to its looks, IMO. If someone out there can explain what it’s all about, then I invite them to do so. And that’s all I have to say about the subject. Maybe next time we’ll talk about “donks,” which are almost as ridiculous.

Photo Credit: Vossen Wheels