There used to be a time when accessorizing was something car owners could do on their own and although that’s still applicable today, there’s no denying it’s getting to be more of a rich person’s hobby both in terms of choice and installation.

Back in high-school, my brother bought a pukey yellow Toyota Corolla two-door sedan; he saved up his money, got it painted red, bought a pinstripe kit at Canadian Tire and applied it in a fashion similar to the white stripe on Starsky’s Ford Gran Torino (except it wasn’t a wide solid stripe but outlines). They weren’t on too straight and it looked kinda hokey, but it was unique.

Then in Grade 11 a friend showed up in a totally modded out Pontiac Astre. It was the Pontiac version of the Chevrolet Vega – the pony car of the ’70s, once the Camaro/Firebird moved up to muscle-car status. His dad had bought it for him and spent a lot of money getting the body, mechanicals and flecked paint into show-car shape (apparently so his son would have the coolest car at school when he got his licence at the age of 16).

Today’s modifications are more akin to that latter example, and the owners who can afford them often hang out in cliques.

Take window tinting, for example. You could get rolls of the stuff fairly cheaply at Canadian Tire and if you had the patience and know-how, you could do a decent job that would last several years. The proliferation of rear window defoggers threw a wrench into the works and examples of the way they bubbled up the tint are still evident in some of today’s older cars.

My buddy’s Astre had aftermarket gradient tint that was mirrored at the top of the glass and slowly faded down to medium tint at the bottom.

Tinting became one of those specialty shop installations that over time became relatively cheap; then, manufacturers began getting tinted glass supplied and installed on new vehicles (with the benefit that if anything ever goes wrong with the glass, it’s covered under warranty and replaced free of charge).

But now comes word of automotive applications of specialty glass that tints instantly (actually, it unfrosts at the flick of a switch). The principle is that you have all these electrons zipping around helter skelter in your car’s glass surfaces deflecting whatever light tries to get through, so that nobody can see inside your car. Flick a switch and all the electrons line up like the Queen’s Guard and you’re able to see through the gaps in their rows.

It’s something that has been available on house windows for some time, and I don’t know about its auto applications except maybe for sunroofs and as privacy features on parked vehicles, but I’m sure somebody will take the technology and adapt it so tomorrow’s modifications will as different from today’s as my buddy’s car was from my brother’s.

Tags: accessories, aftermarket, window tinting