Today we will discuss how drift missiles came to be. Why are they used and how has it changed over time.
Except for drift muscle and D1 drifting is pretty grassroots in Japan. Everybody can join and its pretty simple to drift a few rounds on Ebisu for example. Because of this there are many people at want to learn it. But people dont say: "Its not a matter if you crash your car, but when you crash it" for nothing. A lot of people do not want their daily drive to get beaten up learning how to drift. So they will buy a beaten up car to learn it with, in comparison to rally and autocross in Holland.
Drift missiles mostly get used to practise wallruns and twin drifts. This is because these two actions will have the biggest chance to damage your own car or in the case of the twin drift, the other persons car. Until a few years ago people switched over to the regular cars as soon as they got the hang of it.
However, the last couple of years things have changed a bit and drift missiles have became more of a sub group. People have bought cars to hit each other on purpose instead of trying not to hit everything. Just because they can. Also they continue to drift even after they hit something. As it has turned out to be more of a subculture you see special modifications for drift missiles. A common mod is placing the headlights on the roof (such as the first picture) But you also see that people cut the roof off. Driving with parts removed such as bumpers, sidescreens and bonnets is also pretty comon, as are strangely mounted turbos and exhausts. Some people modify their car to make them look like missiles, the so called 'murdered out' or banger style. So as you see, sometimes things can go a little strange.