Most people sneer at front-wheel-drive cars when it comes to performance, believing that big power and rear-wheel drive—if not all-wheel drive—are more important for spirited driving. But the old saying about driving a slow car fast applies to front-wheel-drive cars, which can just provide different lessons for drivers to learn as they push the platform to its limits, either in the form of custom builds or impressive factory products such as the Honda Civic Type R or the ubiquitous Volkswagen Golf GTI. Few front-driven drift cars exist, however, which makes it all the more surprising to see this race-spec Acura RSX in a new video from the Hoonigan AutoFocus YouTube channel.
An Acura RSX That’s Built To Compete
Hoonigan AutoFocus host Larry Chen caught up owner Jeremy Boysen to discuss his RSX racing build at a Gridlife event taking place at NOLA Motorsports in Avondale, Louisiana, near New Orleans. The car was built to compete in GLTC (Gridlife Touring Cup) but Boysen drives it in all kinds of events, apparently, completely unafraid to get his car right into the thick of things.
Under The Hood: Stock K24
The little RSX actually accrued some battle wounds at NOLA after Boysen's rearview mirror fell off and he turned in a little early, catching another car in the process. Under the lightweight, flimsy hood, which is the car's main piece of unobtanium that Boysen can't risk damaging, lurks a stock K24 in place of the original K20 he received the car equipped with. It's got what he calls a "simple JDM six-speed" stick shift.
Factory Racecar With Some Light Modifications
The car itself is apparently hard to enter into more standardized competition, so Boysen seems happy that GLTC has been put together with a focus more on safety than strict performance standards. The car doesn't even have power-boosted brakes or ABS, forcing Boysen to focus on his own driving skills even more on the track.
Ultimately, though, he's out for fun, having added some underbody lights and a party mode button on his racing dash. The cage itself is believed to be original to the car itself, which was a factory racer rather than having been converted from a street-going example, which makes it something that Boysen could potentially sell for a pretty penny if he wanted to spend a bit of time returning it more to stock.
Sources: youtube.com and grid.life.