Sliding the ass end of my best friend's Spider around the corners downtown was what made me fall in love with the car and buy it from him. Most of my prior experience with RWD was with air cooled vws, and 356 Porsches. They have their charms, and can be made to be very fast around the turns, but they got nothin' on the 124 engine/chassis for the kind of driving that I found fun.
I love drifting my Spider. I've taken it to the back corners of the mall parking lot at night and drifted circles around the light posts for several minutes before avoiding the onset of mall cops. Other than them, no one sees me do it because I look like an idiot when I do it. Everyone who does it in unsanctioned places looks irresponsible when they drift their car, just as those who drag race down residential streets going 70 MPH look irresponsible.
You might say drifting is like
porn : it's not dirty until someone else catches you looking at it. Might I suggest that drifting is the porn of the automotive enthusiast; it's raw, eye catching, easy to understand, and employs something that is inherent in all of us. Do we all enjoy porn together? No. This might explain why so many find drift exhibitions and those participating in them distasteful. Larry Flynt insisted that we cannot legislate taste, and I agree. I likely wouldn't show up to a drift car exhibition, but any neighbor who's building a drift Fiat can borrow my carb sync tool anytime, just like I won't go cruising for prostitutes, but a self respecting transvestite hooker can borrow my sequin mini skirt if she's in a pinch
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It seems to do quite well, and appears to be very well balanced. I'm guessing that it's got a locked/semi-locked diff and a lotta tuning... This car's chassis is 5 & 1/2 inches shorter than the 124 Spider's, but it is otherwise the same as the Spider's in stock form.