You Wouldn't Download A Car

Car enthusiasts love to tune their vehicles, adding power and torque while sacrificing just that pesky little warranty. For diesel truck enthusiasts, however, coal-rollers have given the whole community a bad name — and turned the watchful eye of the Environmental Protection Agency on them. This has led to a black market of people buying unproven, untested tunes from each other online.

Getting your car tuned by some rando’ with a laptop isn’t new — the wiry guy in a baggy hoodie who can totally street tune your WRX, man, just gimme $100 and do a few pulls with me in the passenger seat is a car meet staple. The idea of a whole black market for tunes is something new, however. Something so new, in fact, that it forgets those words are already taken. As CarrerCrytharis points out:

Remember Napster? The big evil filesharing company that left poor Lars Ulrich destitute? I’m likely one of the younger folks to have any memory of the software, but it earns a special place in my heart for introducing me to the idea that stuff could just be free if you didn’t feel like paying for it.