If the extent of your tinkering amounts to go-fast stripes and furry dice you're not even in the same race as Nigel Houston, Mark McLaughlin and the two Ryans, McLaughlin and O'Toole.

Even if you've lowered the ride height and filled the boot with ice (that's in-car entertainment to the uninitiated), these guys are still laps in front.

Who says? A jury of fellow custom car enthusiasts, no less, who voted the quartet tops in a televised trial of transformation technique. The appropriately titled Petrol Heads series is to be broadcast later this year.

The winning team, comprised of students and engineering workers in their teens and early twenties, were pitched against a like-minded squad from Bangor who metamorphosed a Vauxhall Tigra coupe into a personalised pick-up.

But the Larne team's project was even more ambitious: taking what TV's Top Gear might disparagingly describe as a reasonably priced car - a Peugeot 106 - and turning it into a green meanie resplendent in full body kit, a stunning leather interior, chrome exhaust, alloy wheels ... the works. Even the seats and roof cloth were ripped out and replaced with top notch colour-coordinated materials.

And with a 20-speaker 6,000 watts sound system the Peugeot sounds as loud as it looks in its lime green and black livery.

Working on a strict £5,000 budget, they produced a state-of-the-art mechanical masterpiece valued at around £30,000.

Nigel said the four had been friends since school days and had "always had an interest in cars", to the extent that they've "worked together on a number of projects".

It was after Nigel took his own customised Ford Fiesta to a show in Dublin last November that the Petrol Heads competition concept was hatched. "I got talking to people from the production company and they came back to me a few days later to ask if we'd be interested in making the programme," he said.

The two teams were formed and worked round the clock to have their cars ready for the Fintona Loud 'n' Live show for modified vehicles.

"The people at the show voted for the best car," Nigel explained and the wee 106 won by a landslide.

"We couldn't have done it without a lot of help," he admitted. "LA Trim re-covered the dash in green and black leather, Speedifit donated 17-inch allows and tyres and Cool Metal custom did a lot of the bodywork."

And the prize? Well, the teams weren't in it for the money. The Larne lads won a trophy and, as Nigel said, "It was worth it for the experience."

The production company sold the car last Thursday to another of the team's sponsors, JK Autospares in Belfast, to go on display at a series of motor shows before being raffled for charity next year.

Which means the car's quite literally the star.