Tuner Shop Liquidation Auction Is a Treasure Trove of Tacky 2000s Car Parts

It’s a trip back to the days of garish vinyls, lurid underglows, and all the plastic you could ask for.

byLewin Day|
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403 Auction/HiBid
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If you dream of Altezza tail lights, garish wheels, and all the other trappings of the 2000s tuner scene, rejoice! As one Canadian tuner shop is closing down, it's auctioning off a treasure trove of parts from yesteryear.

The shop in question is Performance Improvements, based in Ontario, Canada. As covered by The Autopian, the company is sadly going out of business and selling off $150,000 worth of remaining stock, plus shop fixtures and hardware. The parts are being sold in an online auction on HiBid, with the caveat that the shop will not ship items and that only local Ontario residents can bid. For those lucky enough to live in the area, though, there are plenty of forgotten treasures on sale.

Perhaps most nostalgic are the many sets of clear taillights that so defined the era. They're typically referred to as Altezza lights, with the style debuting on the Toyota Altezza and Lexus IS models back in 1998. They quickly became a tuner scene staple, with companies like APC manufacturing lookalike designs for cars like the Honda Civic, Nissan Sentra, and just about anything else. A wide selection for early 2000s cars is available at the auction, including old favorites like the Dodge Neon, so if you need some for a throwback build, you might just find them here.

There are plenty of wheels to be had, too. Brands represented include American Racing, XXR, Voxx, and Bart, along with a particularly striking set of four Fast wheels in four different colors. Most of the designs available wouldn't be out of place in the early Fast and Furious movies, with a few muscle-car styles available as well.

Other highlights include remote starter kits, various Crane cams, and a stack of cold air intake kits that will totally soup up your engine, bro. Other performance parts available include timing gears and various "performance chips" and "modules" of dubious utility. The auction also lists also plenty of regular maintenance parts, too, like wiper blades and headlight bulbs.

As for the shop equipment, there's everything from air compressors and ladders, to old office chairs and an ancient copy of Mac OS X Panther from 2004. It even comes paired with a copy of Adobe Acrobat 6.0, complete in its original box! Truly astounding.

If you live in Ontario and spot something that suits your build, you might just score a bargain. If you're elsewhere, but have a friend in the city, you can always overnight some parts from Canada. For everyone else, the auction is worth a click through, even just to see how far we've come in the past two decades. The car scene has grown and changed since then, and if this auction is anything to go by, it's largely been for the better.

Got a tip? Let the author know: lewin@thedrive.com

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