CATCHING THE DRIF!

A FONDLY REMEMBERED FPV ONE-OFF FROM THE MID-NOUGHTIES, THE DRIF6 FALCON DRIFT MACHINE HAS BEEN RESTORED TO ITS FORMER GLORY - AND THEN SOME - BY BARRA GURU ZANE HEATH

- KIAN HEAGNEY

LONG before young 'uns had swapped out overpriced S13s for AU Falcons to throw sideways at drift days, a small team from Ford Performance Vehicles unintentionally foreshadowed the trend with the DRIF6, an after-hours deal thrown together by the FPV engineers in 2006 in the name of fun.

The car that would become the DRIF6 wasn't picked fresh off the FPV assembly line to be built as a pristine, high-end machine. Beginning life as a 2002 BA Falcon, it had been used for a stack of hot-weather testing in rural Australia before being shoved in a corner after a 'kangaroo crash test' mangled a good portion of the front passenger side.

Looking to build something cool for Ford's annual family open day, the FPV boffins dug the car out in 2006 and decided to turn it into a drift car, using scrounged parts from R&D leftovers, sponsor handouts, and what they could make themselves for next to nothing. When you combine that ethos with a stripped interior, extra gauges, race buckets, and an aftermarket wheel, you've pretty much got the same recipe that drifters all over the world have used for decades to create their cars.