The Iraqi military, backed by a whole bunch of allies, have been fighting ISIS to reclaim Mosul, in the north of the country, for months. The city is still embattled, but a few determined individuals are bringing car culture to the streets anyway, with an impromptu drift show and video.
You can tell BuzzFeed News correspondent Mike Giglio isn’t much of a gearhead as soon as he refers to this BMW E36 Ti compact as a “beautiful sports car,” but we appreciate the efforts in sharing this unique slice of auto enthusiasm with us anyway.
It sounds like that thing has an engine swap and one hell of a wide-open fart pipe, at least.
It’s heartbreaking to see what the streets of this city look like, but I have to say it’s pretty cool that the local military is getting behind some tire-shredding car action.
A local identified as the even organizer explained that he wanted to share the fact that “there’s a lot happening in our country besides shooting and wars.” His point might have been better made if he hadn’t posed with a rifle, but I’ve got to throw some respect to how much effort and bravery it must have taken to make this drift show happen. Even if it was brief.
The whole thing apparently shut down after about an hour due to regular drift problems (a broken driveshaft) and Mosul drift problems (terrorists dropping bombs from drones.) Here’s hoping they get another chance soon.
If car culture can have any hand in bringing positive energy to such a challenged place, we’re all about it. And if you’re curious about what the Mosul drift scene really looks like, I found one informal clip that seems to showcase a little earnest Iraqi tire slaying:
Hat tip to Aaron!