A Cavalier Attitude

He's reworked just about everything but the taillights. His Web page lists more than 50 modifications. Tires upgraded four sizes. New suspension. A GM performance supercharger under the hood. A 1,200-watt Sony amplifier. Flat-screen television in the trunk, television monitors mounted in the visors. Racing seats. Custom-made sliders. Triple engine gauges, like eyeballs, on the driver's side of the dash. Neon blue lights under the car and inside, too; it lights up like the control room of an aircraft carrier.

Of course it has remote start.

Josh hits that and the car rumbles to life, deep-throated and ready. Friday night. They're going up to the mall so Hutson can get her nails done. She says she doesn't chew them if she gets them done. He has on the shirt for his car club, Team VI, which has all types of cars in it. He and one other guy have Cavvies.

This shirt has his name on the pocket, too, only it got messed up, and they put his name and type of car on the same line.

It reads, "Josh Cavalier," as if it's his last name.

The Cav Cult

The Cavalier was once the best-selling car in America, and that alone makes you wonder whatever happened to this country. It was 1984 and 1985. It was priced to sell -- like, for $14,000. It came in a three-door hatchback, a four-door, a coupe and a convertible. There was the Z-24. The car was updated three times over the next 13 years, and then GM lost interest. It died in 2005.

There is no real national organization to the Cavvy phenomenon.

There is a J-Body Organization out of Arizona (named for GM's framework for the Cav, the Pontiac Sunbird and such), and Clubcav.com and V6z24.com and the Cavalier page at Cardomain.com. The latter has more than 9,000 Cavalier owners listing their hyped-up vehicles -- more than any other car except the Camaro, which is, like, a real car.

It's big in the Midwest.

"It's more like a cult than a membership thing," says Mike Baker, a 20-something graphic designer and president of Team VI. He is working with a Scion, but counts himself "a Cavalier man."

People think this is funny.

You should see the scorn on Web sites, in chat rooms: