A missile car?

Random Bits

TIME magazine’s person of the year is 26 year old Mark Zuckerberg. Honestly I didn’t know the fellow until I saw his freckled face bellowing from the cover of the magazine. People in internet land know him as the creator of their recently acquired, most vital organ, Facebook. And thanks to his unique grasp of our addictive need to socialize, he has created a modest fortune for himself. Forbes has his value listed at US 6.9 billion. He drives an Acura RSX!

AE86

A day or two ago, I was looking at the January 2011 edition of Super Street magazine. It was trapped in a sealed, transparent plastic bag, so I couldn’t ruffle its pages. Anyway, at the top of the cover page, in an orange color scheme, I saw this –S2000 POWERED TOYOTA AE86. At that instant, I felt proud of my homeland, because we have a fully documented S2000 powered AE86 which was built in Mandeville. It is a beautiful machine.

Missile Car

What do drifters do in the off-season?

I have tried to find the origin of the term missile car, but that is as difficult as trying to pick winning lottery numbers. A missile car, also referred to as a drift missile, is a low budget drift car, one which exists or is used solely for the purpose of drifting. Today’s competition drift cars, despite resembling the cars that the average enthusiast drives, are for the most part fully built race cars. Nothing is spared, in terms of cost, to ensure that the machines can produce the tire smoke tsunami and insane drift angles, which the judges love to see. When Toshiki Yoshioka’s AE86 came up for sale, the advertised cost was US 38,000 – for a 1985 Toyota Corolla!

Missile cars go in the opposite direction. Nothing is spent unless it is deemed absolutely necessary. The exterior of the drift missile remains unchanged and more often than not, it has a battered and bruised appearance – evidence of continuous abuse. Motor swaps are common in drift missiles, for example, a Chevrolet LS1 (V8) in a RX-7, but the theme is understood by everyone – drifting solely for fun, in low buck, expendable machines.

So when the season ends (D1, Formula D, etc.) pro- drifters continue to do what they do best – Drift. But, there are no trophies, no prize money, no appearance fees and no rehearsed sponsor thanking speeches, just drifters, launching their missiles and having a drift- filled, wonderful time.

Cecil Munroe Gleaner On-Line Writer