I think from the general public, a "riced" car - be it excel, lancer, civic and our cars (what do you call "non-riced" cars?) skyline, supra, RX-7 look all the same to them. I don't feel like they really give a crap unless you come blairing past them with the loud note...then as someone mentioned before they just shake their heads and mutter "bloody hoons" under their breath.
I beleive that age makes a big difference also, if the general public care to take notice of the driver in the first place before passing judgement.
I've never exerienced this myself, but a read a lot of people who drive their skylines around and are being "harrassed" by the other drivers out there, yelling at them thru the windows and abusing them just coz they drive a skyline...or any other import/rice car for that matter...and they all seem to be the younger ones complaining of the abuse. Apparently the young drivers driving the imports did nothing to provoke or piss off the other drivers, but oh well...who really knows for sure?
Like I said, I myself have never experienced anything like that before...even 5 or 6 years ago when I was still 20. So it makes me wonder about those complaints as i find it hard to beleive that many of the general public would go out of their way to start abusing the import/rice drivers...
but like I said...who really knows for sure? One person's word against another's...
Justin