I’m having a debate elsewhere about a new Cupra SUV that’s going to come with a “drift mode” option. Now I really think the latest craze for providing a button to set up a road car to enable it to drift is pretty much the most pointless automotive fashion ever. You can’t ever use it on the road, drifting by its very nature slows a car down, and even if you do take your brand new Cupra SUV on a track day they are unlikely to be encouraging drifting in my experience. So please, what is the point in developing a technology for a car that has no practical use whatsoever ?
Now don’t get me wrong, drifting is great fun in a rear wheel drive car in the right circumstances, I’ve enjoyed many a sideways episode in an MX-5, so I can see the basic appeal, but is this fashion for the “drift” mode just to make those who have a button feel a bit more “Clarkson” even if they never ever get a chance to use it ?
It’s just another pointless box to tick on the sales blurb.
Marketing departments have no idea about engineering or driving, they just look at producing pretty brochures and adverts. (Grumpy design engineer speaking who told a certain marketing department where they could go. They shut up.)
If 0.01% of customers want it, then it is worth adding another minor subroutine to the ocean of software already in the car
I do recall a couple of funny videos of spotty zit squeezers on full drift mode binning their Ford Foci (I think in the States) while trying to emulate Pikes Peak locally.
I thought…well in it’s own Darwinian way, that’s a few less tosspots around.
Then I thought…would not have minded one…way back in the day… in my 3.1 Vulcan milled Capri.
But then, it had one. The prod pedal.
I hope it has some sort of protection for turning it on, imaging accidentally hitting it half way around a roundabout.
For me it seems there is not enough collaboration with customers these days and to much of ‘we know what the customer wants’
Who here would have signed up for losing the glovebox or having the key redesigned with the smallest fiddliest buttons in the world? How difficult is it in this day and age to send out a survey and canvas opinion. They have a massive wealth of experience and valuable content in clubs like ours so include them in customer workshops during the design process.
I can just visualise some moron with a “P” plate using that in traffic to “impress” his mates/girl and causing a major “event”. Absolutely pointless and in the wrong hands (those that want it) terrifying!!!
whist I agree with you to a point is not the idea of the “drift” mode that your car will drive sideways in a safe manner without you actually having to push it beyond the limit as it normal to get the back end out ? So if you use it whilst negotiating a right turn at a roundabout you steer as normal just that the back end sticks out. I’ve no idea, never had a chance to try one, anyone actually had a go ?
Very logical Martin, but I doubt the morons think logically and going round a roundabout in the right hand lane getting the back end to “stick out” at the wrong moment could end up with it clobbering the car in the left hand lane. Yes, I know that I’m a pessimist.
It will purely adjust the conditions of the DSC and traction control operate at. So rather than promoting additional actions, it will just limit some of the functions that have been put in cars over the last 20 years. It could be seen as a good thing as too many people rely on the electronics to drive.
ABS, DSC and because of them, TC are pretty much legal requirements in vehicles these days. The Renault stability control for instance is exceptionally good.
Maybe old farts like me ought to remember that nearly every car of our youth had drift mode because grip was so lacking on the cars we drove then. Rubbish tyres on skinny rims and no electronic intervention made it child’s play to get even the most underpowered car sideways . My MG Midget was rarely in a straight line , and I drove dad’s Triumph Vitesse via the door windows in the wet . The only car which wouldn’t paly was my 2CV which was impossible to unstick .
Back then most cars were rwd but now they are fwd , with big tyres and levels of grip which are hard to approach without being silly , if not dangerous . Many drivers have no experience of a 'dab of oppo ’ and a device which enables its application at lower speed is safer than the alternatives .
That said , I think drift mode is as daft and childish as launch control and parptastic exhausts - but If I were 22 again I’d bloody love 'em !
My Dad’s Citroen GSA Special was pretty sticky too with its hydraulic suspension but I did take a corner too fast ‘once’ and it felt like it was up on three wheels
IMO, a drift mode is pointless for road driving. I attended a learn to drift experience once. It was great fund and obviously on a private track. They used modestly powered RWD Japanese cars (Nissans, IIRC) and taught us donuts, figure-of-eights, and tried to teach us to drift a short course - most of us (including me) failed miserably at that. I wouldn’t trust an electronic drift mode. For example, BMW’s traction control can easily be overcome past the point of no return in either fully on or dynamic mode. Don’t ask me how I know, but rest assured that nothing but my pride was injured or damaged
