SOMETHING DIFFERENT
October 23, 2011 No Comments
Something Different
This day and age, drifting has been a part of the tuner community for over 20 years now, and is still growing stronger and stronger every day. As a matter of fact, drifting has been around since the late 1970′s born and developed in the twisting and rolling hills of Japan. Now normally drifting has been a strictly Japanese sport, where the brave of heart would hone their skills with a few things. Those proficiencies being normally would be guts, skills, bravery, a fast running car, good hand brakes, and some luck. Some of the“Old School” Japanese heads would beg to differ, and would say fast cars weren’t needed to drift. Drive fast, turn the wheel, and pull that hand brake like your life depended on it!
Hādodorifuto!!! Loosely translated meant, Drift Hard!!!
This saying would be heard for miles and miles in the hills of Japan. It is said that a Kunimitsu Takahashi was the true inventor of the drift technique. He had a style that would amaze many, and baffle others while he smoked the tires of his motorcycle around corners in many of his races. He had a tendency to be able to slide his tires through the apex of numerous turns to achieve a higher exit speed than anybody else on the course. This new and somewhat extreme style earned Takahashi several championship races, along with a new found fan base, that included one more important person who is also known in the drifting world. Keiichi Tsuchiya . In some circles Keiichi is known as the Drift King, or Dorikin in Japanese. It has been said that Keiichi adopted Takahashi’s style of motorcycle racing, and used it in his own way driving through the mountains of Japan. Keiichi was known to have used an under powered Toyota Levin Hatchback to go through his drifting runs. Honing his skills of knowing when to grip and when to slide. There was even a video uploaded to YouTube, that profiled Keiichi, back in the day performing these great feats of driving on the well known dangerous curves, and it was called Pluspy. From that point forward Keiichi had become a name of legend.
From the 80′s we move forward quite a bit to when drifting was introduced to the Western Hemisphere. Back in 1996 over at the Willow Springs Raceway, in sunny Willow Springs, California, a Japanese magazine called Option brought over the creator of the Japanese D1 Grand PRIX, a few choice drift cars, and two drivers for a drifting demonstration. The two drivers were Kenji Okazaki, well known NHRA Drag Racer, and Mr. Dorikin himself, Keiichi Tsuchiya. These two gentlemen put on an exhibition competition for the crowd at Willow Springs that day, unknown to a lot of people Rhys Millen was also a strong participant in that small gathering of driving excellence. That small showing by Rhys is what some say sparked his interest in drifting, and is what keeps him returning to the Formula D Championships every year since its inception.
From 1996 we again push the fast forward button to bring ourselves to present day, and where we are in drifting now. If you look carefully you will see so many new technologies, styles, techniques, and car combos in the world of drifting today. For example, converting a FWD (Front Wheel Drive) Scion Tc to a RWD (Rear Wheel Drive) sliding machine. Using domestic cars for drifting has been made common place in the drifting world. Chevy Camaros, Corvettes, and Ford Mustangs have been bringing the fight to the Japanese for quite a few years now in Formula D. Another vehicular creation that has caught on is American power in Japanese cars. Dropping a Chevy LS1, LS2 motor into a Nissan 240SX, or Lexus GS350 to gain more tire ripping torque than ever before. One more example of tooling in drifting is the giving birth to the ultimate Frankenstein Drift Car.
This brings us to why we are here today, why are reading this article, and why we are drooling over this new era of total drift car design.
Introducing the 2012 HGK BMW Drift car. As the pictures show it looks like your normal BMW 328i Coupe, set up with wider tires, lower stance, and a seamless paint job. Folks, just like you I thought the same thing, and I too was completely wrong. This car has been chopped, sectioned, trimmed, tightened, cut, lowered, reworked, and then built to perform. This HGK BMW was developed, and built by the Latvian Motorsport Team, who painstakingly put this 3 Series through the proverbial wringer. The team cut weight where no one else would have bothered to take the time to do so.In my personal opinion, and I don’t understand why other teams with formidable financial backing haven’t take the same route. You’ll understand my statement more, after I give you the stats on the car.
Now lets go over the the basics of this car, and shine a little light on this soon to be drifting threat. Your standard BMW 328i comes with a straight 6 and healthy portions of torque for most to enjoy that undeniable feeling of what it is to drive a BMW, right? So, what makes this one any different? A brand new LS3 6.2 Liter V8 engine with the proper management churns out a blistering 500bhp, and about 525lb ft. of torque at the wheels. Sickening right? You can almost here that LS3 roaring down the track, and basically screaming bloody murder around the corners. That’s the first point, and the second is one of the more crucial factors of this car, and that is weight. Your average 3 Series coupe weighs in at about 3400lbs, or 1542kgs, (Fat Ass!) while the HGK BMW weighs in at an anorexic 800kgs, or 1763lbs. Holy Slim Fast Batman!! That’s basically half the weight of the standard BMW, and twice the power, but it still looks stock. The trick to that was, to remove, replace, and then relocate the motor. Get rid of ALL unnecessary parts, which included EVERYTHING but the frame, steering set-up, transmission, (which was swapped out as well) wiring harnesses, suspension, roof, and doors. So basically you would have a 328i on the outside, with the look of the after effects of Bronx chop shop on the inside. Straight barren I tell you, empty, soulless, and the saying, “A former shell of itself” comes to mind. The video footage of this fascinating car shows that these brilliant gentlemen made two shells that mounted to the body of this car. One for the front and one for the rear. This is where all of that unneeded weight was truly lost. If you really think about it, how much weight can the average drift car lose if it completely shed the trunk, and the exterior was completely remolded in fiberglass? The same principle applies to the front as well, getting rid of the headlights, brackets, fenders, hood, and just simply re-sculpt the front end in fiber glass so as to save a solid 300 to 400lbs. When the front and rear ends are actually off of the car, you now have a full sized drifting go-kart. Where now you can drift and just about see where the wheels make their mark at the clipping point. Cool right?
Well the men over at Latvian have put in at least 9 months of R&D, followed by producing an awesomely lean drift car for the 2012 season. It hasn’t been speculated where this car will pop up first, but mark my words it will be force to reckoned with. I think it will make its true debut overseas first, and make a name for itself in D1. Then maybe make its way stateside to join the ranks of Dai Yoshihara, Tanner Foust, Vaughn Gitten Jr, and Rhys Millen in Formula D. Who knows, I could be wrong, but either way its going to be something new that nobody was ever expecting.
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