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The Cars Most any car can be drifted, to a point. The popular cars seen around the world reflect the local flavors and what is commonly available, but center around light to moderate weight, rear-wheel-drive passenger cars with an emphasis on good handling. Japanese cars are often preferred, due to the sport's Japanese origins, but are not necessarily at an advantage. In Japan, the top drift machines are the Nissan Silvia/180SX, Nissan Skyline (RWD versions), Nissan Fairlady Z, Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno and Corolla Levin, Toyota Altezza, Toyota Soarer, Honda S2000, and Mazda RX-7. US drift competitions will feature the local versions of all those cars (such as the Nissan 240SX and Toyota Corolla GT-S) as well as American performance cars such as the Ford Mustang and Pontiac GTO. Drifters in other parts of the world often adapt their own local favorites, such as the early Ford Escort (UK and Ireland), BMW 3 Series (other parts of Europe), or Volvo 700 series (Sweden). There is some debate over whether or not front-wheel-drive (FWD) vehicles can drift. By the technical definition (rear wheels slipping at a greater angle than front wheels), they are indeed able to drift. However, many consider FWD vehicles a poor choice for drifting, as the frequent use of the emergency brake (necessary to drift FWD cars) slows them down and makes them harder to control. Also since they use their front tires for both steering and power, the car loses control after a single slide, while RWD cars can drift through consecutive corners. In this way, the definition of drifting is frequently challenged to say that FWD cars cannot "drift," only oversteer. However, some drifters such as Kyle Arai or Keisuke Haketeyama use front wheel drive Honda Civics to drift, and succeed in doing so, sometimes besting their RWD opponents. Theoretically, FWD cars can drift by simply taking a turn without braking and skid into the turn (on the ice, a FWD accomplishes the same and by debated definition "drifts") and by using manji or lift off techniques (see below) to readjust the car coming out of the turn. AWD vehicles, such as the Subaru Impreza WRX STi, and Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution drift at a much different angle and are usually induced by power-over. As the front wheels are also driven on an AWD vehicle there is a noticeable lack of counter steer. D1 and other professional competitions do not allow AWD vehicles. However vehicles like the Impreza and the Lancer are being converted to only use the rear wheels so as to become a RWD car that can compete in drift competitions that prohibit AWD cars. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Drifting (motorsport) Copyright (c) 2006 highspeeddrifter.com Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".