IMO the thing with the "riced" cars is, like you said, somebody wants their car to be a "show" car.
But they add this huge wing on the back, a big fart pipe that does nothing at all for performance, but makes alot of noise, this big body kit that tries to makea economey car (Civic) or a familey car (Accord) try to be a sports car, and the person did nothing at all for performance (but remember this is a "show" car) and they drive around like the y have the fastest car, always wanting to race, always trying to draw attention to their car, but it is a pos performance wise. And they are not nice about it either, if you beat them in a race (and unless you were driving a Chevette running on 3 cyl or a Geo Metro, that's the only way you wouldn't) they do the legendary "ricer fly-by" which is after you raced the, and just minding your own bussiness, going the speed limit they will pass you 30mph or so over the speed limit with their fart pipe going and all that, then usually turn off the road before they can loose a race again.
Nobody siad your car is rice, it is said when someone get's a F-body or a 'Stang and rices them out, but that is always when they habe the V6 (sllllloooowwwwww) you rarely and I mean hardly ever see a V8 F-bod or 'Stang riced out. making your car look good is one thing, but going overboard is another, some examples would be; fart pipe (if you want a good sounding exhaust, get a real cat-back system, like Flows or Borla etc..) big huge wing (really need that downforce when your cruizin' 70mph on the highway) make their car stupid by having only 1 wiper or adding a really gay body kit (I will admit, some are nice, most and depending on the car are just horrible)
just my $0.02