drifters: you begin to make me sick!

[redline]

actually Jason I think this has been a very good thread , its caused a lot of debate which is exactly what a good forum is all about ,

I think some people who may have been down on the drifters and rally boys now may actually see where they are coming from and can appreciate the wealth of knowledge , enthusiasm and keeness to develop the 300 to new levels .

and surely that has to be to everyones benefit.

lets be fair ,just off the top of my head

we have seen the very successful 16v engine conversion and the development of the turbo conversion,
Dais poly bushes and lowering kits ,
roll cage development
even discussions about carbon fibre or kevlar bonnets

none of which would have come about if there hadn't been an interest in motorsport

[kaos]

motorsport is whats kicking development up.

if i wasnt drifting, drag racing and auto testing mine, i would have no need for the 16v conversion(that means no development in engine tuning), no need for fibreglass wings n bonnets( that means no cheap replacement panels), no need for uprated arb's, bushes, engine mounts, suspension mods etc

cut motorsport out and what have you got left a stock 300 series motor with no upgrades other than a bit of incest between models.

[classicswede]

I have to agree with Aymat that drifting could be a big problem for the servival of the volvo 300 series.

If you take a look at the Ford mk1 and mk2 escort there is now a big shortage of 2 door body shels and this is due to the rally scene. As it has become very competitive huge numbers of these cars have been destoyed between crashes and fatige from the servire stresses involved with rough surface work. It does not take many events before cracks start to appear. A good 2 door shell is now hard to find and will fetch big money.

I can see this happening with the 300's in the UK if drifting 300's becomes more popular and continues for many years to come. I doubt it will fade out as RWD cars are hard to come buy with 99% of modern cars being FWD.

Making the servival of these cars worse now is as always the banger racers (much worse than any drifter) and the high scrap metel prices with the huge demand from china for raw materials.

The other way of looking at it is perhaps the drifters are on of the keys to the serival of the 300 series. Without them to buy these cars who would have them. I have a few and an scrapping a couple (I will keep every single part as I have done with 240's etc over the years). I think maybe the key is to support the drifters and ask that they offer the parts they remove for sale to other 300 series owners ( I have seen interiors offered with no takers though). How many engines have you seen for sale after an engine conversion? What has happened to the crashed drift cars? We need to encourage the parts off these cars to become available to others to use so good comunication between V3M and the drift forums is going to be needed.

I am guilty of having a drift car and possibly going to build a rally car now as well. Both of these cars are in quite poor condition body wise so I see it in these cases as keeping the cars alive. Want we dont want happing is good condition rust free examples being wrecked for motor sport.

As to the development of uprated parts most of this in my case came about as just improvments to my own road car to make it drive the way I wanted. The vast majority of sales of these parts have been for motor sport use. So from that point of veiw the development work I have done would hardly be worth it if it was not for drifters etc.

[foggyjames]

As long as people have respect for the cars, and don't regard it as one big joke, I'm ok with it. The cars are there to be used....and let's be honest, if you use a car on-road, it's going to get damaged sooner or later anyway.

I've never seen the point of the gratuitous destruction of cars for fun.

cheers

James

[pistonpen paultje]

There are 2 ways of drifting a car i think:

Strip it out, drive it till it's almost dead and then trash it to hell so it won't be recougnisable as a 300 anymore.

The other one: Make a compatible drift car with a lot of power and easy handling. Then make it as nice as possible and maintain it properly.

In the end: The 300 dies out quickly. When I bought my first MK1 on the net, there were about 4 or 5 MK1's constantly on the net. Now its hardly 1. Also MK 2/3 have the same problems. The population is only the half of what it was 3 years ago here in the NL. Not because of drifting, more of the high wreckingprices, and hundreds die on the farmercross...

Note to your selfs: Try to maintain your own car as good as possible. The more your car will eventually be worth, and it will be a rare youngtimer!