The folks at Donut Media decided to do a deep dive into Brazil’s underground car culture and try to see why it is so distinctive. To see this up-close and personal, they spent three days in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the country’s largest city and capital of the homonymous State, being chaperoned by their local Editor G. Lopes. The underground car scene they found is a growing subculture with ever-increasing popularity over the past few years.

Sao Paulo is Brazil’s largest city, and home to about 12 Million people. It is also the economic and business capital of the South American country. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that its growing underground car culture and the support infrastructure that comes with it, like the shops specialized in tuning and car mods, the events held there, some of which are done so illegally, draw people from all over the country to check the scene out. This subculture, like in any other country, after all, is not just about the cars, but also about the people who love them.

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The Underground Scene In Brazil Is Made Mostly Of Small Engines, And Big Turbos

A first-gen FWD VW Saveiro burning rubber during a launch

The demographics for the typical car mod/tuning enthusiast in Brazil are mostly young people, and well, most young people are broke. Brazil is a country of compact cars. The 10 biggest automotive brands in Brazil based on the number of units sold in 2022 were Fiat, GM, Volkswagen, Toyota, Hyundai, Jeep, Renault, Honda, Nissan, and Peugeot. Volkswagen Brasil operates independently of Volkswagen in the rest of the world.

And for the Brazilian market, they’ve had their most popular cars equipped for many years with the EA827 engine which, as it turns out, is quite reliable and under-stressed. Having a lot of these running on the roads, allows for a whole tuning industry to develop around them. And to this day, compact, popularly used Volkswagen cars equipped with the EA827 engine is the bulk of the tuning industry in Brazil.

When I was a boy growing up in Brazil during the 80s, I remember an informal meet held every Sunday on a wide six-lane stretch of road that had been built as part of the infrastructure for future development of the area close to where I used to live. There was no traffic at all on that wide road during that time as there was nothing else around.

It was the first time I saw turbocharged cars and began to become interested in cars in general. Amazingly enough, the vehicles I saw the most back then in the 80s during those sunny Sundays were the ones featured in this article. A lot of VW Beetles, Gol, Saveiro, Chevrolet Chevette, Opalas and Caravans.

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Chevy Also Marks The Scene With Classic Caravans And Opalas

Other cars seen prowling the streets at night and marking their presence in meets are the small rear-wheel drive (RWD) Chevy Chevette, and the Chevrolet Opala, also RWD, which GM sold in Brazil for several decades and for a time was the most luxurious car you could buy in Brazil and even seating Presidents were chauffeured in them. This was prevalent mainly during the 80s and early 90s when it was not possible to buy imported cars in Brazil.

The Opala made history in the South American country and was a car much appreciated for its luxury and pomp. In 1992 the Opala was retired and replaced by the Chevrolet Omega, another iconic RWD Chevy that made history in Brazil and now is often modified and tuned for street performance as well. Modified Chevy Chevettes are usually employed as drift cars since RWD cars are rare in the country.

The first major design change of the Chevrolet Opala in Brazil. The Coupe model seen above was in production from 1980 to 1986. This page has a lot of examples of the Chevy Opala and Caravan.

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The Small RWD Chevy Chevette Is A Drift Favorite

A parked 1981 Chevrolet Chevette
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Side and partial aerial view of a 1981 Chevy Chevette

The guys from Donut Media got to drive a modified Chevette on a rented track and had quite a thrilling experience hitching a ride on a heavily modified Chevrolet Opala station wagon, which was named the Caravan in Brazil. You can check both of these instances in the video featured in this article.

Brazil’s automotive industry is most definitively peculiar, to say the least. It’s important to bear in mind some social, economic, and even political aspects when thinking about Brazil. Despite being one of the world’s biggest economies, it’s still a developing country. Its automotive industry reflects that in part, with only a handful of the world’s biggest auto brands having encountered a market for mass production in Brazil.

A second-generation Chevrolet Chevette getting ready to drag race a VW Beetle.

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Imported Cars Are Rare, But You Eventually See A Toyota Supra Or BMW 3 Series Around

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Orange Fast And Furious Replica
Rakhmat Darmawan via Shutterstock
A shot of a Supra replica of The Fast and The Furious at JDM Fest 2023

To further complicate things cars and motorcycles are heavily taxed in Brazil, which make them very expensive, and on top of that, imported car and motorcycles are even more heavily taxed, to encourage industries to set up operations in the country if they want to sell their products there.

That means only big automakers who established manufacturing plants in the country compete for the majority of the Brazilian car market. Even then, due to taxation, an entry-level vehicle in the USA such as a Toyota Corolla, for example, is a high-end car in Brazil, and very few people can afford one, even though Toyota makes them in Brazil.

Foreign products, especially industrialized ones such as automobiles are even more taxed. That, along with international freight costs, and customs duties, among other things, make it so that Brazilians end up paying almost twice as much for a car that is imported rather than manufactured in the country.

The Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord, which have been imported for a while during the past few years, usually sold only a handful of units monthly over the whole country. This year Toyota sold three Camrys in February and nine in March in Brazil, while the Honda Accord is not even on sale currently.

A Brazilian who can afford a brand new BMW, for instance, even if it’s just a 3 Series, has either a lot of disposable income or some serious priority issues. Maybe more if he or she is driving an older model. The saying in Brazil goes something like this: “If you see someone driving a brand new Audi, BMW or Mercedes, you know he’s rich.

But if you see someone driving an old Audi, BMW or Mercedes, smallthen you know he’s a multi-millionaire”. That’s because of the maintenance costs where all parts are imported and these brand’s dealerships charge a premium to work on these cars.

In the end, the conclusion was that, as is the case with many other countries, Brazilians work with what they’ve got, and that ultimately plays a role in shaping the underground car culture found in these places. It’s fascinating to get to know different car cultures around the world, and Brazil is no exception.