Horntones is a Californian company which will begin selling its US$150 car horn customisation tool in April. Basically, it enables your car horn to play any sound file - music, voices, rude sounds, sirens ... anything. You'll also need to pony up the readies for an amplifier and the sounds are loaded to the unit via a USB flash drive. The Horntones unit can be installed in or sit atop the dash and holds eight sounds - more than enough to offend almost everybody, with the constabulary included no doubt. While we think that customising your car horn is kinda cool, we also think it's kinda scarey that such tools can be sold to people without them undergoing an IQ test first - this device has the potential to cause uncertainty on the roads, or worse.

But on many campuses today, college kids want the wicked whips they've seen in popular movies like "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" and hit shows like MTV's "Pimp My Ride." Nearly nine out of 10 college students today own a car, according to a survey by Harris Interactive. They've become a $15 billion auto market and now purchase nearly one in 10 new cars, according to automotive researcher J.D. Power and Associates. And many aren't satisfied with stock. They're spending $4.2 billion a year customizing their cars, according to the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association. They're outfitting their rides with ground-shaking sound systems, nitrous-injected engines and 20-inch rims (called dubs in street parlance). "Just like their ringtones, their clothes and their dorm rooms," says SEMA's Peter MacGillivray, "their vehicles reflect their personalities."

That's why there is no single "look" that dominates campuses now. Back in the '90s, Civics were so prevalent that student parking lots looked like Honda dealerships. Now the Civic isn't even in the top 10. Instead, college-age kids are going for a mix of mostly Asian models. The top five, according to J.D. Power, are the Scion tC, Acura RSX, Mazda3, Volkswagen GTI and Hyundai Tiburon. The common characteristic: all these models are easy to modify. California Polytechnic engineering student Erick Li spent $4,000 customizing his black Scion tC by lowering it, beefing up the suspension and adding red "underglow" interior lights and high-intensity headlights for carving turns in the California hills. "A lot of cars can outpower me," he says, "but I can outmaneuver them."

Cherry Bomb is teaming up with Mopar Performance to build a fully modified 2006 Cherry Bomb Charger. The car's 5.7 Hemi engine will be tricked out with the latest performance enhancements available from Mopar Performance including high performance camshaft, lifters, torque converter, and engine and transmission controller. Other performance modifications include: headers, coil over suspension, upgraded Kicker speakers, a 3d Carbon ground effects kit, and of course a killer Cherry Bomb exhaust system.

The Cherry Bomb Charger will debut at the 2006 SEMA show followed by a full round of appearances at numerous automotive enthusiast events in 2007.

The entire rear of the xB fully motorizes out to reveal Pioneer DJ products. When the rear fully retracts, two CDJ-1000s and a DJM-600 mixer in a "coffin" motorizes up, ready to play music for the crowd. Two AVD-W8000 8-inch monitors reside next to the CDJ-1000s and monitor in the rear window provide video entertainment.

Mounted on the doors are Pioneer's REV series component speakers. The rear doors motorizes open to reveal four sets of the TS-C160R REV speakers installed in specially shaped enclosures.

A total of four Pioneer TS-W12PRS 12-inch subwoofers provide heart pounding bass. REV style grills match the REV speakers on the doors.

It's called pimpin' or donkin' and no, most of us didn't know what that meant either. But basically, it means restoring, specifically old American cars generally from around 1970. "This is a '69 Buick Electra. Just an old man kinda Grandpa car." Believe it or not, 20-year-old Ian Huber is just the 2nd owner of this car.

He got it from an older gentleman who lived in University Tower. And you can bet car-makers are scratching their heads trying to figure out how it could appeal to both of them. "One thing, they're fairly easy to work on. Modern cars, it's computerized. You've gotta have computers to work on the engines. It's a lot harder to do mechanical upgrades and just modify."

"I kind of wanted to bring it back and keep it around, I didn't want it to die out." 22-year-old Stephen Walker is in the process of donkin' a '83 Buick Regal. "New interior, re-paint a little, new rims, that's about it. Maybe a small-block chevy instead of the V6."

Don't forget the 8 batteries and the hydraulics. Steve Berg: "How much does all of this stuff cost?" Stephen Walker: "Around $4,000, because when you do this, the car has to be taken completely apart." Ian Huber: "I've done power door locks on it." Granted there have been a few changes since grandpa drove it, but the appeal crosses generations. For Huber, it's been a bonding experience with his dad who's in the restoration business.

For the first time, the German manufacturer joined Ford, General Motors and a who's who of Japanese and South Korean automakers in displaying accessories and concept cars at the Specialty Equipment Market Association show here. They're hawking chrome racing wheels, chrome-tipped exhaust pipes, race-tuned suspensions and souped-up engines.

At stake: the chance to reach hot rodders and style meisters whose customizations are at the heart of the estimated $31 billion accessories market. A Volkswagen booth at the trade show was a must, says spokesman Steve Keyes, because the company's accessories business is growing so fast. Dealers sell eight times as many custom wheels as a year ago, he says. Now, the company is targeting tuners, the amateur mechanics who boost engine performance and rev up interest in aftermarket products. "We're looking at how we can become more tuner-friendly," Keyes says.

So far, DaimlerChrysler AG is the only company that has committed to building its own plug-in hybrids, quietly pledging to make up to 40 vans for U.S. companies. But Toyota Motor Corp. officials who initially frowned on people altering their cars now say they may be able to learn from them.

"They're like the hot rodders of yesterday who did everything to soup up their cars. It was all about horsepower and bling-bling, lots of chrome and accessories," said Cindy Knight, a Toyota spokeswoman. "Maybe the hot rodders of tomorrow are the people who want to get in there and see what they can do about increasing fuel economy."

The extra batteries let Gremban drive for 20 miles with a 50-50 mix of gas and electricity. Even after the car runs out of power from the batteries and switches to the standard hybrid mode, it gets the typical Prius fuel efficiency of around 45 mpg. As long as Gremban doesn't drive too far in a day, he says, he gets 80 mpg.

But American giants may be leading the race toward after-market friendliness for an older demographic. In recent years US automakers have taken a nostalgic turn to reach more boomers with money, rereleasing such cars as the Dodge Charger and Ford Mustang.

Mustangs now come with about 50 after-market options, including a variety of body kits made by 3dCarbon, a Newport Beach, Calif., firm recently launched by the founders of tuning giant Wings West. The company also creates kits for Ford F150 and Lincoln trucks, says Ernie Bunnell, a founder.

"Baby boomers really have this kind of staying-young syndrome," says George Moschis, professor of marketing and director of the Center for Mature Consumer Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. "They feel free to be themselves, and the things that appealed to them in their youth appeal to them now in their middle years."

We started Hot Import Nights in 1998, with a single show. It soon grew to two shows a year, then four. Now we have a twenty city tour each year. Our show is a bit different from the usual auto show. Those shows are spread out over several days, but Hot Import Nights crams all that into six hours. At our latest show in Los Angeles, there were about 24,000 to 30,000 attendees. You can only fit so many people in the convention hall, and there is a limit to how many people you can stream through the door. Some people were lining up at noon to get at five.