Suspension geometry is a complicated beast, and lowering a car with aftermarket springs or coilovers can do a great job of improving handling, eliminating wheel gap and lowering the car center of gravity; if setup properly.

Your average inexperienced car enthusiast that is looking to stand out at their local car meet with a lowered look can really become discouraged when faced with the costs involved with purchasing, installing and properly setting up quality coilovers. This puts enthusiasts in a difficult spot, usually leading them to purchase low quality suspension components and in reality decreasing the cars performance and safety.

MOOG and Marty of Mighty Car Mods posted a video to their YouTube channel that provides enthusiasts with a great do-it-yourself lip idea that will give their car reduced ground clearance, increased aesthetics and the illusion of a lowered car at a fraction of the cost of coilovers or an aftermarket lip.

The guys use hardware store garden edging to create the lip. A low cost UV protected plastic divider commonly used to, you guessed it, shape the edges of a garden. Which makes it a great material to use for their lip, which will see a lot of direct sunlight and road debris.

For this install they use MOOG’s 1993 Saab 900 Turbo. Common on many cars, the Saab already has a factory front lip that is used to reduce drag and increase fuel economy. Since the factory lip doesn’t give the guys the ground clearance they’re looking for they decide to use it as the reinforced mounting point for their DIY lip.

MOOG and Marty take the garden edging and carefully form it to the front of the car using the factory lip behind it as a mold. Once they have the proper length they cut off the remaining edging, leaving a small amount protruding past the factory lip on each side so that it can be cut and sanded to match the body lines.

They mention the possibility of using self tapping screws to mount the edging; but note the lack of reliability in using screws that may back out and turn your lip into a loose body panel, flapping in the wind. They decide on using rivets instead, making the edging look more aesthetically pleasing and sturdy like an aftermarket lip would.

After mounting the edging and trimming the ends to match the body lines, MOOG demonstrates using a sharpie or paint marker to color in the rivets to better match the edging for enthusiasts who don’t want a raw rivet look.

Be sure to check out the Mighty Car Mods YouTube channel for other great DIY car mods that any car enthusiast can appreciate.