Why I love being a car guy in Brazil -and sometimes hate it-
#Brazil

Brazilian people tend to be associated with their receptiveness, carnaval, footbal beaches and women. However, we have a strong and enduring passion for cars and motorsport. With a well-known cultural diversity, Brazil mirrors this diversity on the car scene as well. We have multiple fan clubs for many cars and automakers, different car cultures and so on. None of this comes without issues: everything is expensive to do (mods, maintainance etc.) and road conditions are a far cry from the ideal. So here is why I love being a car guy in Brazil, but sometimes hate it.

The car scene is huge

The car scene here, despite not being so widely known, is relatively large. There are loads of fanclubs and organized events for cars. Classics and antiques, JDM, Muscle, even lowriders, you name it, if you search, you will find a group with special love for some type of mod/car. Specially the beetle (Called Fusca here), this picture is an example of the “Dia nacional do Fusca” or National Beetle day. This day, beetle owners take their veedubs and make huge meets.

We have a very rich motorsport history

Cars have for long been a thing here. The first car in Brazil was a 1891 Peugeot, which was imported by inventor Alberto Santos Dumont. It didn’t take long for racing to become popular; the first race occurred in 1902. Since then, Brazilians have been famous for being excellent drivers; Chico landi, José Carlos Pace (who names the Interlagos circuit are some lesser known examples. And then are the three multiple world champions, Emmerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet and legend Ayrton Senna (all bragging rights for them). Also, we have some mythical race tracks, such as Interlagos and Jacarépaguá. Racing is plenty and karting locations are very common.

However, Brazilian motorsport has taken some large hits recently

Unfortunately, motorsport has been going downwards for some time. Few pilots with potential are being found and many race tracks have been closed. The Rio de Janeiro autodrome, circuito de jacarépaguá, has been shut down and demolished for construction of the infrastructure necessary for the Olympic games. Another very famous race track in Curitiba was taken down to be turned into a residential condominium. It is a shame to see such history being just taken away with no acknowledgement of its importance.

We have some excluve classic gems

As car importations were prohibited for 25 years between the 60’s and the 90’s, automakers have come up with some cars designed exclusively for our market. There were many sports cars designed entirely in Brazil, such as the VW SP2 and the Chevrolet Opala SS. Moreover, Dodge came up with a national Charger R/T and Ford brought the Maverick and its lovely 302 V8. These cars have some real large fan bases and meets come up often. Also, our hot hatches are very unusual. VW has done a Gol GTi (The Gol is a smaller brother of the Golf) and Renault has brought the lovely Sandero RS recently!

Anything car related is expensive

Every car in Brazil costed almost twice as much as in the US for a very long period of time (Now staggering inflation and Real’s value relative to Dollar plummeting have somewhat diminished this). Now if you want to tune your car, good luck with that. It will cost a lot. Prices aren’t high now compared to foreign ones, but as average income is still pretty low, it will eat up a fair chunck of your hard-earned money. Just to give you an example: The Sandero RS will cost R$ 60k (about US$ 15k or 12k quid), but the minimum wage is R$ 880. So many people will not be able to afford it, even being relatively affordable in other countries. Moreover, road conditions are far from ideal, making trips to the mechanic much more recurrent than it should be.

This is compensated by the brazilian people’s inventiveness and love

Nonetheless, you will still find awesome builds and people who really appreciate and love working on cars and are just happy with that, not to mention the out-of-the-box solutions found to solve the problems we will face. Would still be nice to have affordable, powerful and tunable cars tho.

This is it guys! What do you think of our Car scene? Would you like a Brazilian car? Leave your opinions in the comments below!

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Comments

Julio [doubleIOTT]

Muito bom o post. O preço que pagamos num carro zero é como se comprássemos uns 3 de valor real…

04/01/2016 - 18:49 |
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Obrigado! Pagar 60 mil num gol é mais que absurdo.

04/01/2016 - 18:53 |
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panor86

Great post!! I salute you from Uruguay! Yes, the brazilian car culture is very rich. We have more expensive cars, the Gol GTi is really rare here. We love the brazilians cars, because they are less expensive for us, and we can go to Rivera or Chuy to find cheaper car parts ;)

04/01/2016 - 19:48 |
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Thanks!! Slaudos para usted ;) . The Gol GTi is rare in Brazil already. I can imagine how it is in Uruguay (I have only seen one once). Glad you’re lucky to have somewhere to go and buy cheaper parts. Most of Brazilians are pretty much screwed with this lol.

04/01/2016 - 19:52 |
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Frédérick Brosseau Métayer

I’d love to know more about your Brazilian car!

04/01/2016 - 20:00 |
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Thanks! You can check some articles I wrote on classic Brazilian cars. Nowadays, with global platforms and imports, most cars here can be seen somwhere else. These classic old timers still make for some good fun!

04/01/2016 - 20:04 |
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XY EZ

Great article. My favorite car is Brazilian! (VW SP2)

04/01/2016 - 20:46 |
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On the Apex

In reply to by XY EZ

Thank you! Very few people know the SP2, which is a shame. Did you know they did a SP1, but it was even more underpowered than its successor? VW also studied a SP3 with a passat water cooled engine. I find it awesome people like you love it!

04/01/2016 - 20:49 |
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Anonymous

So do people in brazil hate americans?
I have always wanted to go there to one of the VW shows..
I really love the classic VW’s but.. most of the world hates the USA (Can’t blame them)
So i am always concerned about going some place to see things like that..

04/01/2016 - 21:13 |
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On the Apex

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Not at all, we love every kind of people :)Come to these shows and enjoy. Would recommend some caution tho because many people will try to take proveit on the fact you’re a foreigner (charge more for services, etc.) If you know any Brazilian, I would highly recommend going around with this person, because he/she will easily notice stuff like that.It also depends on the region you’re going to. Some have more of this, some less.Hope you make it to one of those meets. They are unlike nothing I’ve been to.

04/01/2016 - 21:21 |
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brazil touge

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Not necessarily, some people will midstream an American because of their political side, because the bulls*it of american imperialism and bla bla bla….

04/01/2016 - 21:49 |
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hzanicotti

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

No man, im brazilian and if i could, o would live in your country forever, and stay in the U.S for car meets, they are much better than what we have here.

04/01/2016 - 23:26 |
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brazil touge

Always nice to see another Brazilian here, we love our country but some things doesn’t work, without Jacarepaguá now we have 1000hp gtrs racing on public roads, they tried to save the aic(Curitiba’s circuit) but happily we have a huge community everywhere.

04/01/2016 - 21:52 |
2 | 0

Yeah, it feels good to find other Brazilians here!
This is exactly the point. CBA (Brazilian Racing Association) isdoing nothing to prevent such things to happen.
There will always be a car community wherever you go and this is something I love the most about Brazil.

04/01/2016 - 22:04 |
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ElTamaleroDeSayula

I really want a Brazilian Charger, some day I will have a Latinamerican market car collection, beginning with having a Mexican only Valiant Super Bee.

04/01/2016 - 22:47 |
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Awesome! The Brazilian Charger is truly iconic, being part of the Brazilian “Holy Trinity” of the 70’s together with the Chevrolet Opala SS and Ford Maverick GT.

04/01/2016 - 22:53 |
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Ed Ocampo

Greetings from Colombia! I didn’t know Jacarepagua was torn down! :( Nice to see these kinds of posts around. Don’t worry about the money needed to repair/upgrade your car, we have that here too. We make it work somehow. Cheers!

04/01/2016 - 23:16 |
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Thanks a lot! I appreciate you liked it. I guess this is something that is part of living in countries like ours ;)

04/01/2016 - 23:20 |
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Rod_OT

Ótimo post, cara parabéns! Eu não esperava ver muita coisa relacionada ao Brasil aqui no CT haha

04/01/2016 - 23:56 |
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On the Apex

In reply to by Rod_OT

Valeu, fico feliz que tenha gostado! Bom, estou aqui para difundir um pouco mais a cultura automotiva Brasileira no CT hahah.

04/02/2016 - 00:12 |
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Anonymous

Yeah, Brazil is crap most of the time, but the people make it easier to get by. Try finding parts for a late nineties japanese car and you’ll understand what I’m saying.

04/02/2016 - 06:18 |
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On the Apex

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Sincerely, I think this is just one part. Finding parts and maintainance is difficult and expensive, roads are real crap, but I really like the Brazilian’s love for cars.

04/02/2016 - 13:53 |
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