To our American friends - wikipedia classes them as: Chav is a derogatory term applied to certain young people in the United Kingdom. The stereotypical “chav” is an aggressive teenager or young adult, who is usually, though not always, of working class background,[1] who often engages in anti-social behaviour,[1] and is often assumed to be unemployed or in a low paid job. It first appeared in English dictionaries in 2005.[2][3] The term Charver is more widely used in Yorkshire and North East England, analogous to the “skanger” in Ireland.

Chavs annoy anyone who is not a chav. This is the modus operandi of the chav. The chav is the true avant-garde artist, bending society to his will through the artistry of his car. For him, the car represents the apogee of consumer society, of which he is the epitome. Buried under a Sears catalogue’s worth of cheap jewellery, caked in hair product and that weird sweat/slime only chavs seem capable of secreting, he mopes the streets feeling like the dog’s proverbials, queuing up at the McDonald’s drive-thru like he’s breezing into the Groucho Club, only the Groucho Club don’t serve quarter pounders so he’s got it, like, better.

This is a standard Chav car...

For everyone else, the chav is an idiot, and a consequential idiot at that. We will, despite our best efforts not to, notice him. The chav loves this. He loves this because he’s set out to make you notice him with a fully modified, hairy nutsack of a car, testosterone on four wheels, a phallus capable of doing 90 on a 30 road. He achieves this through a careful mix of shouting, hideous girlfriends, glow-in-the-dark pomp, the glory of the subwoofer and all other manner of twisted genius attention-seeking protuberances. Below are the ten most annoying.

10. Tinted Windows
If there’s one thing a car needs in the rain-sodden back streets, it’s tinted windows. These are not, however, your average tinted windows. They are full-on, post-laser-surgery welder glass, the kind that astronauts use on their helmets to protect them from the glare of the sun. This protects the chav from any of his fellow dipshits who might be roaming 10 or 50 cent short of a Big Mac with a replica handgun.

Not that practical in the night

9. Low Riding

The chav believes that by making himself look like Danny DeVito, he’s going to get laid. In fact, the chav would, if he could, ride bare arse on the tarmac at 70 mph, just to prove how hard he was. Instead, he has to be content with only being able to afford one low riding bucket seat for himself. His girlfriend Shaniqua has to sit in the standard Nova seat, making her look a clear foot taller than him. He is the king of his castle.

Look at speed bumps and be scared

8. The Car Itself
With a good couple of grand spent on preparing to modify his car, the chav actually has little money left to spend on the car itself. The underpowered, smoke-belching monstrosity he ends up with triggers alarm bells with any insurance company worth its reputation, though this is not a problem for the chav because he doesn’t have insurance, he’s a triple-hard bastard and his girlfriend already looks like a riverpig so if she gets a broken nose and whiplash it might be an improvement and even the neck brace would hide her hideously long neck for a couple of weeks. Win-win.

A Vauxhall Nova. Chav staple

7. Driving Together
Not so much a modification, but as good as. Chavs always, always drive in packs. If you spot an isolated chav you can see the fear in his eyes. In any McDonalds car park after 10 p.m., nine out of ten cars will belong to a chav. This gives the impression to any passer-by that McDonalds has employed Zippo’s Circus to provide after-hours entertainment to their patrons.

6. Oversized Rims
On a car with 15-inch tyres, a chav will fit 30-inch rims. You can spot a chav car, even on a motorway, because it looks like the chassis is rolling along on four dustbin lids. It is also a rule of thumb that chavs spend more on the initial purchase of rims than they do on the car itself, so if they park it anywhere in Merseyside for any length of time they are guaranteed to lose over half the total value of their vehicle. Beware the chav masquerading with standard alloys.

These are a bit small

5. Name Tags
You’ve seen them, plastered across the interior of the windscreen: Chantelle & Smiffey, Chelsea & Mooney, Windolene & Pledge. Usually these tags are rendered in a font that comes with a warning about strobing. There is also nothing worse than seeing the girlfriend taking the wheel. Suddenly Griff is Charlene and Charlene is Griff. And you know what? No one can tell the difference.

C-H-A-R-L...what comes next?

4. Body Kit
One of the great joys in life, when you feel justice is being served in an unjust world, is seeing a chav taking a speed bump at high velocity in a Corsa with a full body kit. Watching the sparks peel the paint off the back bumper is a cause for fist in the air cheering from anyone who drives an unmodified car. In fact, the ground clearance of most chav cars rivals that of a Formula 1 car, except a Formula 1 car drives on a flat track at 18,000 RPM while a chav car drives through the 7-11 car park and breaks down.

This is actually a nice one!

3. Exhaust
If you want to see what a chav dreams of, take a look at this. Oh yes, for a chav, the exhaust has to be precisely the same size as he imagines his manhood to be. This roughly equates to the size of the average war memorial. The chav exhaust could comfortably swallow a fox and have room left over for a small child. In order to be an authentic exhaust it also has to rattle so much that it makes anyone’s fillings fall out in a ten mile radius.

2. Undercar Lighting
Driving past a chav car is like being abducted by aliens. First you are bathed in a warm purple/blue glow, then a strange craft moves to intercept you at a speed and angle that seems to defy the laws of physics, then a loud pulverizing noise fills your ears and strange, humanoid figures shout incomprensibly at you. Some chav undercar lighting is so powerful it can be sent through the tinted windows of other chav cars. NASA is currently investigating this technology.

Why do you need to give the ants a suntan?

1. The Stereo
An absolute shoe-in for the number one slot. There are rules the chav must follow for the perfect car stereo. Firstly, it must be more expensive then the entire cost of the rest of the car, rims and all. Second, it must be a CD player, because the chav cannot afford a computer but also knows tapes are gash and cool, init. Thirdly, the speakers must bulge out of the door frames and the subwoofer must be vermillion or lime green in colour and consume the entirety of the boot. It must also require removal of the parcel shelf if the chav truly wants to impress. Finally, it must only be turned to full volume when in built-up residential areas after midnight, and it must always, always, always be playing dogging music.