Industry news

The Hoonigans Burnout and Drift An Electric Smart Car

The Smart Car may be considered to be one of the greatest city cars of all time due to its extra short wheel-base and minute turning circle, but it’s not exactly a car you want to show off to your mates at the local car meet.

That’s unless your mates are the lads from the Hoonigan Racing team established by the king of four-wheel drifting himself, Ken Block, and the minds behind the extremely popular Gymkhana series on YouTube. You know – the one boasting the custom made 1965 Mustang which is now pushing 1400hp via a twin turbo Roush Yates V8 and the rally spec Ford Focus Rallycross car.

It’s fairly obvious that this team does not cut corners when it comes to driving fast.

This time they’re working with a lot less power, however.

With only 60kw of power from the electric motors, a lot of imagination, and plenty of elbow grease, Hert Eugene and the team just manages to get the rear-wheel driven shoe box sideways outside their headquarters in LA and after a lot of practice and some contact with a badly placed shipping container, the Hoonigans get a haphazard power slide safely under their belts.

With the method to disabling the Smart’s traction control only a swift Google away, after many trials and tribulations (and a dented front bumper) they land on the answer to the perfect EV burnout:

  1. A large can of WD-40
  2. A steep incline
  3. Three men holding the car in place.

What could possibly go wrong?

Tune into the Hoonigan’s YouTube channel every Monday to Thursday to keep up with their latest motoring escapades and let us know here at Grand Tour Nation what weird and wonderful cars you’ve managed to do something stupid in!

Oh, and if you’re put off by the tyre smoke, do not fear! Being entirely battery powered, the Smart Car is entirely emissions-free, so they’re just making up for the lack of exhaust gasses!

Alex Harrington

Alex started racing at a young age so certainly knows his way around a car and a track. He can just about put a sentence together too, which helps. He has a great interest in the latest models, but would throw all of his money at a rusty old French classic and a 300ZX. Contact: alex@grandtournation.com

Related Articles

One Comment

Back to top button