I guess you all have watched fast and furious: Tokyo drift and you are all aware of drifting cars on tóge mountains. In fact there wasn’t real tòge mountain pass featured in the movie but mount Fuji road was used as drifting location for the movie scenes.
BMW was never the one who introduced drifting to the world but why the name of drifting culture was linked to it when it’s Japan who gave this racing technique to the world and even on a Japanese car and not on any BMW.
So story behind this mixed confusion is very interesting which started like this so let’s get to know it further.
The introduction of the drifting in a motorsports
It was year 1970 when there was a intense car race event on Fuji speedway and there was a man who was there not just to win that car race but he came there to do something new which wasn’t even thought before by someone else.
It was Kunimitsu Takashi who was a retired bike race who joined car racing after having an accident in a bike race. He already loved speed but he was always into doing something new so he tried it on Fuji speedway race event.
He was in his nissan skyline GTR and he did an experiment with his car, when he approached corner he accelerated his car which resulting his car to slip his rear tires and his car moved to oke direction without loosing any control or dropping speed on the corner. Where other drivers were applying brakes on corner to slow down and to take a turn without loosing control on car.
Audience and present people were shocked to see this all as in prior to this whenever someone’s car used to be oversteer then generally drivers used to be panic because all this used to resulting in spinning the car or dropping off thr track and driver’s elimination from the race.
How “drift king” took this art to global level
So Japanese nissan skyline GTR was the first car to do drift for the first car even if it wasn’t drift friendly car and even for now nissan GTR can’t drift without any tuning.
Car enthusiasts were trying to drift with their nissan GTR but they were unable to do it and “drift king” Keiichi Tsuchiya was one of them.
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Keiichi Tsuchiya was working in his family metal workshop in his childhood and he used to drive his family car to deliver parts to clients in very young age. In the same race i 1970 Keiichi Tsuchiya saw this drifting and he was so thrilled by this drift that he wanted to own his car so he can practice this art.
He bought his first car nissan skyline GTR canmery which he was racing with and winning so many races. With his consistent winnings local racing team and sponsor kurata jido sa and bando a scai decided to make a deal with him to give him a Toyota A86 if he wins that 1984 championship. And Keiichi Tsuchiya fulfilled his promise and won that car.
Now this car brought a turning point in his career and life where he tunned this car for drifting and also getting support from sponsors and car magazines and tuning shops for parts and maintenance.
In 1987 Keiichi Tsuchiya made a video of him drifting on his A86 and it got viral in car enthusiasts worldwide when internet wasn’t a thing so it was circulated in a video tape which reached in European car guys.
European cars for drift
Germen already having good engineering in cars in mid 80s and they had a decent image in car market so BMW was already aware of drifting but official didn’t want that their car should be linked with this enthusiasm as Mercedes and audi had clean reputation so BMW also wanted tk keep that reputation in car guys.
BMW already had all those qualities in their E30 which are drift friendly in a car but official didn’t want to be associated with a dangerous motosport.
But European car enthusiasts had recognized its ability so now they started drifting with this car and this is how BMW E30 M3 was the BMW’s first car which became a drift king.
Why these European car companies didn’t want to enter in drifting
Now European car enthusiasts came to know the potential of their BMW E30 cars which can’t only go fast on straight line but they are capable going sideways on tight corners.
After E30, another model E33 was also famous in drifting guys as these cars were less expensive lightweight and without any tunings and only with just a differential belt they were drifting corners very well.
Now these cars were also popular for thefts as they were increased in numbers of stolen cars where police gave it a slang ‘break my window’.
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After hitting the popularity among drifting still BMW’s official didn’t want to adopt drifting culture as they were still focused on traditional racing only. So their main purpose was to maintain a clean image and not to get known for illegal street races, drifting, smoky burnouts.
Even audi and Mercedes didn’t want their cars to used as street racing or drifting so the Mercedes launched ESP (electronic stability program) in 1995 which was stopping any drift in a car and then audi shifted to Quattro technology which avoid any drift in their cars.
How finally BMW entered in drifting culture
In the starting of 2000s finally drifting was getting recognized by the motorsports and companies were organizing such events officially. Where BMW introduced a safety feature in their cars called DSC ( dynamic stability control) in end of 2001 which used to cut the power if car is about to slide in corners. As BMW didn’t want their cars to be connected with illegal street drifting activities.
But BMW secretly working for drift lovers as their M cars and performance cars still were available with rear wheel drive and mechanical components which were perfect fir drifting. Even BMW started drifting training in their winter driving school in 2006 where they were teaching drifting. In sweden BMW was teaching to control drifting on ice surfaces to the students.
Finally BMW adopted drifting and accepted it officially in 2011 where BMW launched an ad where BMW M coupe was drifting on a road and this is how BMW openly accepted drifting
Then in his next move BMW blocked an entire roundabout in Capetown where they shot cinematic of drifting on 5 235 coupe were synchronized in drifting act
Now BMW has made its fun to drive tagline a marketing campaign where new BMW’s are launched to be a fun to drive cars and even BMW made a drifting guinis world record on its M5 by drifting it for 24 hours continously where another M5 was refueling it by drifting parallel
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