8 Crazy and Unique Formula Drift Cars!

8 Crazy and Unique Formula Drift Cars!

Posted on by Joey Redmond

If you’re an avid Formula Drift fan and followed along for years you may have your share of favorite memories. However, can you remember some of the most unique FD builds to take the grid? Here are our top 8 picks for most unique Formula Drift Cars! Let us know if you think we missed any or what your favorite ones are!

8. James Bondurant’s Factory Five Shelby Replica

James Bondurant (son of Bob Bondurant) brought a few unique cars out to Formula Drift over his career span. The most unique was a Factory Five Roadster, which is a mock chassis of the famous 427 Shelby Cobra. He never qualified in it

7. Mike Peter’s Automatic Chevrolet El Camino

Mike Peters drove a 3 speed automatic Chevrolet El Camino around Formula Drift for quite some time! The automatic transmission is now illegal in Formula Drift so this is another unique feature to this odd drift car that stands out. You could also classify it as the only “truck” to run in Formula Drift if you wanted too. The really cool thing about this build is that is was super budget and Mike Peters was decently competitive with it.

6. Travis Reeder’s Electric EL1 Chevrolet Camaro

Travis Reeder with Napoleon Motorsports unveiled a full electric Chevrolet Camaro for the 2019 Formula Drift season. The car qualified at Road Atlanta putting this Chevy in the history books of Formula Drift. This Camaro runs Konig Ampliform wheels that are 20″ x 9.5″in the rear and 19″ x 8.5″ in the front wrapped in Nitto NT555G2 tires.

5. Team Falken’s 1969 Chevrolet Camaro

Team Falken really had their glory days of Formula Drift in the early years of the sport. The 1969 Chevy Camaro was a perfect example of the boys in teal and blue throwing anything on the track they thought could drift. Ryan Hampton was tasked with trying to wheel this old muscle car around Formula Drift. While the car never performed exceptionally well he did look up to the standard of the times in Formula Drift and man it looked good sideways.

4. James Robinson’s V6 Honda Element

James Robinson took his day job as an engineer at Honda and applied his skills to building a V6 swapped Honda Element for Formula Drift. This marks the only SUV or non-car chassis to compete in the sport to date. The new rulebook does not allow trucks or SUVs to compete in the series so this will stand as the lone qualifying SUV for a long time into the future.

3. Tanner Foust’s RWD Volkswagen Passat 

Tanner Foust and his crew chief/builder Stephan Papadakis have brought some wild builds into Formula Drift over the years. I choose to dig into the Volkswagen Passat that was converted to RWD with a Chevrolet LS7 squeezed into the engine baby. The car was a very unique chassis and the first Volkswagen to compete in Formula Drift. While Tanner Foust is retired from Formula Drift he still brings the Passat out to events such as Gridlife where the car has been dubbed the “Drift Taxi.”

2. Blake Fuller’s RWD Acura Integra

In the early days of Formula Drift we had Blake Fuller of Braille Battery bring the first RWD converted FWD car to Formula Drift. He showed up with a DC2 Acura Integra that he converted to RWD and competed in FD. This car wouldn’t even be competitive in Pro Am these days but it was pretty cool and unique for its time. It was also the first Honda chassis to compete in Formula Drift with several to follow.

1.Federico Sceriffo’s Nitrous Powered Ferrari 599

This is the car you are likely the most familiar with on this list. The Ferrari 599 made a debut in the 2018 season piloted by Italian drifter Fedrico Sceriffo. The first version of the car was a twin-supercharge the 6.0-liter V12 for its debut season. It was later simplified to a simpler motor setup with nitrous to top it off for power. It’s not likely we will see another exotic car compete in Formula Drift in the next decade so this is truly a crazy and unique chassis to treasure.

FARUK KUGAY – FD PRO DRIVER – BEHIND THE WHEEL PODCAST – EP10!

Posted on by Konig Gfx

Formula Drift Pro driver, Faruk Kugay joins Scott (Konig, Marketing Director) on the Behind The Wheel podcast and tells us what’s to come in the 2019 season, his journey in the Europe Drifting scene, Sonoma Drift Winter jam, advice to the grassroots drifters some advice on what to do when building a program and so much more!

We’re going to be releasing the YouTube video versions in multiple parts from now on. We will continue to release another part every day until we come to the conclusion!

The full audio version is live on iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher right now!

If you like what you hear and see, please subscribe! We’re on iTunes, Google Play and of course, the full video version of every episode is on YouTube! Thank you!

Faruk Kugay podcast

You can also, subscribe or download the podcast on our website, iTunes, Google Play, Youtube & Stitcher:

itunes google play youtube stitcher

FOLLOW:
Faruk Kugay: @faruk.kugay
https://www.instagram.com/faruk.kugay/

Scott Weiss (Konig) Instagram: @scott_Konig
https://www.instagram.com/scott_konig/

Kevin Lawrence partners with Konig for 2017!

Posted on by Konig Gfx

Konig is proud to announce their partnership for the second year in a row with Formula Drift Pro 2 Driver and Enjuku Racing team member, Kevin Lawrence. Lawrenece is not only a chill dude he’s also a hell of a drifter. He was the 2014 Three Palms Drift Champion and has been competitively driving for about 5 years. Starting out with an AE86 platform Lawrence has spent a significant amount of time in his Nissan 240sx S14.5 Right hand drive pro car that is powered by an RB.

As Kevin and the Enjuku team prep for the Pro 2 season opener, Kevin gives his thoughts on what its like coming from drifting as a hobby to competing as a professional driver in the video below. Lawrence also talks about what is to come for this season.

NEW 2017 LIVERY:

Check out the video:

Formula Drift RD1: Streets of Long Beach

Posted on by Konig Wheels

Images and words by Fuel Culture | Article

Dennis Mertzanis came off the 2011 season with his best career finish in the series. During the off season, a new car and a wildly more extreme Chevrolet Performance Parts engine set the stage for Round 1 Streets of Long Beach this past weekend. His new car is a 1991 Nissan 240sx with a S14 kouki front end. The car started its life as a Fuel Culture project car and was publicly debuted at the 2011 SEMA Show in the Kenda Tire booth.

New to Mertzanis Racing for the 2012 season is Fuel Culture which is a virtual car garage where users can come and rate, review, and price compare aftermarket parts for their car. Another great website coming into the picture this year is www.rentreporters.com which is a great innovative service that allows renters to report rent payments to the credit bureaus. Everyday, they are helping renters build credit for something they are doing every month already! SPEC Clutch has come on board to provide us with the best LS clutch technology that money can buy. Rounding out the new sponsors is BodyArmor which is a superdrink packed with antioxidants, electrolytes, vitamins, and nutrients on top of being an all natural beverage.

The new chassis features a Chevrolet Performance Parts crate engine LS3 which is producing over 500whp and receiving all of its fuel needs from Aeromotive parts. We are running VP Racing 100 octane fuel to reach this horsepower output. We teamed up with KW Suspension and SPL Pro Suspension parts for the most lightweight and adjustable suspension you can throw at a Nissan 240sx. Dennis still remains on Kenda Tires for 2012 and continues to run the Kaiser KR20 using Konig Milligram 18 inch wheels which are lightweight thanks to MAT technology. And rounding out the return sponsors, Dennis continues to support Petfinder.com to help great dogs and cats find a forever home.

When Dennis hit the Streets of Long Beach, it was his first official drift event with a V8 engine and he couldn’t believe how the torque helped him keep up around the track including that drag race to the first turn. He was able to keep up with any car on the track when following in drift including the event winner Justin Pawlak during practice.

When they lined up for qualifying, the Mertzanis Racing team was still working on some setup changes to the car but qualifying had to go on! After watching 40+ car runs in front of him, it was time to put on a show! Dennis sadly missed the 53mph minimum trap speed with his qualifying pass but managed without 10 points for speed to lock him in for 32nd place. This meant lining up in the main event against Ryan Tuerck who was the events number one qualifier.

During Saturday morning practice, our support team Ryan Clemens and Dave Epifano made some extreme suspension changes and we found the car now running through the speed trap at 57mph which is over 8mph faster than where we qualified. Now facing off against Ryan Tuerck, the team threw everything we could at him during competition. Dennis was so solid through Turn 10 of the LBGP course, he caused Ryan Tuerck to make a huge correction and straighten out. It was a hard fought battle and the judges actually had to go through deliberation before declaring Ryan Tuerck the victor. This moved Ryan into the Top 16, ending the weekend for Dennis Mertzanis. The team is set on doing a few more test sessions this month to be ready for a huge finish at Road Atlanta in front of the team’s hometown crowd.

Fuel Culture | Dennis Mertzanis Racing | Formula Drift |