I thought I had a good understanding of how rusty cars are in Canada, then I saw this Nissan 240SX held together with little more than hopes and dreams.
This will come as a surprise to exactly zero Canadians but get a load of this, all of the rest of y’all: The cars that fill up the low-buck drift scene of Canada are so, so, so so so rusty. Rustier than that. Even rustier than you think would be more rusty than you think.
Aaron Losey, who runs the big drift series down in Texas, Lone Star Drift, goes on recon trips to other drift series around the world with some regularity, seeing how things go in Australia, Japan and now the middle of Canada.
Here is a typical junkyard Mazda3 (at least what’s left of it):
Here is its slightly porous b-pillar:
And here is the car that the truck at the top of this post is carrying:
Note that the rear floorboards are rusted through all the way from door to door. The roof is what seems to be holding the front half of the car with the back.
What all of this means is that the Canadian drift scene has had to largely give up on the 1990s Nissan S-chassis that take up most of the American drift scene in favor of newer vehicles. That means 2000s BMW E46s, about as cheap as you’re going to get that’s hasn’t been eaten by the tin worm.
Watch the whole video above. It’s an interesting look at not only how car scenes differ around the world, but why they do as well.