REDUCE GREENHOUSE EMISSIONS AND IMPROVE TRUCK EFFICIENCY
The first step to making a drift run look cool is to drive a cool looking car. This article is about how to make your car stand out in the eyes of the spectators and judges. After all, you can drive the best line of the day, but if your car looks like a pile of shit, no one will care. Even if you win a competition, you have to go home looking like a loser Lofton Enterprises.
The first step to styling a drift car properly is to choose an overall theme that all the parts somehow fall under. Do you want a clean and simple street look? Or do you prefer a crazy, radical and unmissable race car style that screams “Look at me!”? There are all sorts of middle ground between these two variations, but every part on your car needs to match the overall theme you should have chosen before assembling the parts. You need to have an idea of how you want everything to look when assembled and complete.
Once you have an overall theme in mind, the first step to properly styling a drift car is to choose the aerodynamic system. If you’re going for a more street-oriented and clean theme, something like the Vertex aero with minimalist lines and clean design is a good choice. Combine a subtle front bumper with some very clean and simple side skirts, and your car will be sure to impress everyone. Once you’ve decided on the front, go for a rear bumper to complete the clean and street-oriented look. For a street style car, a rear wing is completely optional. Some people don’t like a wing and let the aerodynamics and wheels do the talking. Others prefer a very clean lip wing like the Supermade, which is my personal favorite. Another very cool option is the three-piece GP Sport lip wing, which combines a center section with two side sections on the fenders to create a low profile and sleek accent for a subtle and street-oriented aero.
Once the front bumper, side panels, rear bumper and rear wing are selected, you need to decide on the appropriate fenders. For a street-legal vehicle, you should opt for some sort of wide-body fenders that aren’t super aggressive, but still allow for easy swapping when accidents and contact occur on the track. Twenty millimeters of fenders in the front and fifty millimeters in the rear is a typical setup for a street-style car. Some drivers even prefer to stick with the stock metal fenders, but repairability and functionality often suffers. Fenders are often overlooked, but they can make or break the overall look of a drift car. If they are too narrow, the car looks timid and weak. Too wide for the aerodynamics you’re driving, and the car looks clunky and out of place.
If you want a very loud and obnoxious drift car theme, there are countless options available. The most ridiculous and obscene aero that most people think of is BN Sports. BN lines are extremely widened, often extending the overall width of a car by as much as 6 inches. A flared front bumper paired with flared side skirts and a rear bumper scream for attention and make the car look like a hovercraft. Some other wild and crazy aero companies include Works9 and Origin, both of which offer similarly styled kits that are known for being loud and crazy. The common theme for a racetrack style car is to be as wide as possible and have very sharp, flat lines that help accentuate super wide wheels that go well beyond the wide fenders.
Usually with racetrack-style cars, people tend to use GT wings with huge struts that are at least 10 inches high. A GT wing is anything that has removable struts that place the wing plane high above the roofline of the car. A common way to make your drift car look wider and cooler is to place the wing struts extremely far apart, sometimes even on the fenders. Another way to make your car stand out is to use special struts with crazy designs and patterns. Some people use shooting stars, crazy patterns, or simple small cutouts with simple cuts to reduce weight while maintaining structural integrity. Occasionally people shy away from GT wings and instead use something extremely crazy like the 326 Power Wing.
