Hoons and their toys – spoilerland
“Hoon” is a typical Australian expression that is difficult to explain because it stands for a diverse behavior. A very dry but apt explanation of hoons can be found on Wikipedia:
A hoon is a person who deliberately drives a vehicle in a reckless or dangerous manner, generally in order to provoke a reaction from onlookers.
Hoon activities (or hooning) can include speeding, burnouts, doughnuts, or screeching tyres. Those commonly identified as being involved in hooning are young and predominantly male drivers in the age range of 17 and 35 years.
Probably there is no real word for the term “Hoon” in other languages, as these specific behaviors occur to a much lesser extent outside of Australia.
As an observer in Australia you notice that there are a lot of extremely pimped-up cars here and the spoiler on the car generally enjoys extreme popularity. In addition, there are so-called “sports exhausts”, which are primarily intended to simulate a sporty vehicle with a sporty engine, as for some vehicle owners, the sound of a vehicle is an important (emotional) factor that is significantly influenced by the muffler.
It’s been almost 40 years since a Formula One World Champion came from Australia (Alan Jones 1980), but apparently many Australian men think that they were born Formula One champions or at least as cool as James Dean was once.
To emphasize this feeling you of course have to have a corresponding car. Since often for real sports cars (Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Mercedes AMG, Bugatti, etc.) the financial resources are missing, so-called muscle cars serve as a substitute. These are cars that are based on serial-production models, but are sometimes much more motorized. Furthermore, the cars are then equipped with often extremely ridiculous-looking (and useless) spoilers in the size of a pub-counter, fake air inlets indicated with stickers and other common car accessories such as wide low-profile tires, alloy wheels, lowered suspension, door sills and not least the important sports exhaust.
Some mounted mufflers have dimensions like the drainpipes of toilets and sound alike. Many are designed so that if you attract the wrong type of attention, you can make the exhaust quiet.
And if you already have such a car, you are naturally forced to show it off. For this you have to drive through every residential area at least once and demonstrate again and again how extremely loud the sports exhaust can be. Of course, both windows are cranked down and one hand has to hang out. In the back, the thin series pipe of the four-cylinder flows into a stovepipe into which a handball would fit and the motor unleashes its 70 hp at 7000 rpm.
In Europe one would think that the exhaust is certainly broken and needs a workshop visit, but among muscle drivers here in Australia, it seems to be considered particularly cool and masculine, if one can press down the accelerator and the exhaust is doing a lot of noise.
The aerodynamic stickers on the roof together with Subarus modest spoiler are certainly very useful in this model … 
Very discreet spoiler? 
Higly taste- and meaningful decoration for the car … Well, the red may be reminiscent of a Ferrari. 
The highlight is the burn-out. Many think of burnouts as more of a personal crisis, which might also apply to the Hoons. But with the burn-out referred to here, the hoons spin the wheels of one axle (with the brake on the other axle pulled). This not only consumes a lot of fuel, but the tires wear out very quickly and are then unusable. Also that other parts of the vehicle, such as e.g. gearboxes and drive shafts, wear out considerably, seem to play just as little role for hoons as the fact, that such antisocial behaviour is more likely to be expected from pubescent teenagers than from adult men.
In almost all areas you can find traces of burn-outs, in and out of town, in residential areas such as business districts, on secondary and main roads and even on motorways. In some places, where the police rarely come past, large-scale extreme tire abrasion as well as a lot of remnants of tires testify to firmly established meeting places for such (usually nocturnal) activities.
Remains of a meeting of the best customers of tire shops
In fact, it seems that the hoons have copied something from the graffiti scene here, and try to leave burn-out tags in as prominent a place as possible, e.g. a busy intersection. You can then brag about that to other hoons (because only they will find something like that great).
While almost all states in Australia have tightened hounding prevention legislation, which can sometimes result in the vehicles being impounded and disposed by the police, this does not seem to have any effect. Every day, and especially every night, we hear the hoons driving around, annoying everyone with their extremely noisy antisocial macho behaviour, and see new burn marks almost every day on the streets.
It is interesting that these sports exhausts, which can be switched between noise and normal, can be legally sold. Some even advertise indirectly that near the police, etc., the exhausts can be switched to quiet:
This means, if you attract the wrong type of attention, you can make the exhaust quiet. When it is switched to quiet, it is dead quiet – like stock. This is especially handy for early morning starts, talking hands free, or if Police are about.
Possibly it would help if in all states in Australia something like a motor vehicle inspection would be compulsory, in which one has to get the car regularly every two years checked for safety…
