Prepare yourself, because you’re about to see a metric shit ton of crashed AMGs. Yes, Drift Mode is coming to Mercedes.
Drift Mode you know from the Ford Focus RS, or, more likely, from watching a video of a Ford Focus RS powersliding right into a cliff.
The system is for all-wheel drive cars that can vary how much power they send to the rear wheels. Drift Mode tells a car’s computer brain to send that power predominantly to the rear wheels. It does not, in any way shape or form, turn you into a driving god.
In any case, Mercedes wants in on all of this hot drifty action that the kids seem to love these days, specifically calling out the system in an interview with Autocar at the recent Paris Motor Show stating that the upcoming E63 AMG will get it:
The fully variable set-up, which is capable of apportioning up to 100 per cent of drive to the back wheels, has been developed to provide a distinctive rear-wheel drive bias in a move Moers hints will see the new E63 continue to offer power oversteer traits despite the move to four-wheel drive across the model range.
“It is four-wheel drive and we’re going to have a Drift Mode,” Moers revealed to Autocar at the unveiling of the new Mercedes-AMG GT Roadster and GT C Roadster at the Paris motor show.
The 50-year-old AMG chairman confirmed a program included in the E63’s standard electronic stability control system, which provides added torque to the rearward bias of drive to create a slide, will be called Drift Mode
This is all funny to me because Mercedes followed the trend in modern fast cars of switching from rear-wheel drive to all-wheel drive. It’s all to make a car faster from 0-60 and easier to control. That is, an all-wheel drive car is less likely to just spin its back tires and let you crash your very expensive performance car.
The hilarious thing about that is now that Mercedes has brought complicated all-wheel drive to their AMGs, they’re adding complicated software to make them act like their simpler rear-wheel drive predecessors.
On the one hand, it’s a sort of best-of-both worlds compromise. On the other, expect to see a lot of people hit a button on their AMG and think it will keep them from busting the shit out of their car. It won’t.