First popularized on Japan's mountain passes in the 70s, drifting is the art of driving sideways at high speeds while retaining control of the car. Since then, it has grown into a form of motorsport with drifting competitions making its way to places like North America, Asia, and Europe, where competitors are judged according to the speed, angle, showmanship, and the line they have taken into a set of corners.

Updated July 2023: Drifting is becoming all the more popular and the Japanese cars are the go-to vehicles for this sideways motorsport. Other countries' cars can easily powerslide and create clouds of smoke (American cars can do it standing still), but Japanese automotive legends such as the Nissan Silvia, Toyota AE86, and Mazda RX-7 are among the most popular 'go-sideways' machines. We've updated this list with more info on these cars.

For people who'd like to get started in drifting as an amateur or a professional, it's important to have the right car for the job. Preferably, you would want to have a lightweight rear-wheel-drive car that's got enough grunt to spin the rear tires and force the car to oversteer, thus creating what they call "initiating the drift". With that being said, this list of JDM cars features the greatest and favorite go-to drift missiles of professional drivers, each having its own unique characteristics that would suit your driving style.

Informational data for these cars were retrieved from the automaker's websites themselves, as well as CarSurvey, Kelly Blue Book, and Edmunds.

10 Nissan S-Chassis

Whether it's the S13, the S14, the S15, the 180SX, the 240SX, the Silvia, or whatever it is called, Nissan's S-chassis is one of the best platforms to have when starting out a serious drifting career, simply because it's fundamentally ready to drift even in stock form.

Performance

Top-spec models of the S-chassis get the SR20DET engine, which is basically an RB engine with 40 hp and two cylinders less, but is also significantly overbuilt to take on over twice the amount of power without blowing up. Coupled it with a limited-slip differential, and you're just about good to go to practice drifting. There's no wonder why they call it the 'Mona Lisa' of drifting.

RELATED: See This 1JZ-Swapped Nissan 240SX With 500 HP Drift Up A Storm

9 Toyota Chaser JZX100

The Chaser was designed by Toyota to be a mid-size luxury sedan. So you might be thinking, what does it have to do with drifting? Well, three things make this car great — rear-wheel-drive, long wheelbase, and 1JZ-GTE.

Performance

That's right. The Chaser's long wheelbase enables the car to remain stable during sideways action and especially in transitioning from one direction to another. Then there's the 1JZ-GTE, the smaller 2.5-liter version of the legendary 2JZ that could easily and reliably produce 500 hp, generating clouds of tire smoke on your way to a perfectly controlled drift.

RELATED: Here's Everything You Need to Know About The Toyota Chaser JZX100

8 Mazda RX-7

One thing that makes rotary engines stand out from the traditional piston-type engines is that they could make a lot of power from such a small displacement, as evident with Mad Mike Whiddett's 26B four-rotor RX-7 that has 650 hp and screams up to 9,000 rpm.

Performance

In drifting, you don't just need lots of power, but you also have to have a lot of control. And that's where the RX-7's chassis truly shines, with its 50-50 weight distribution and low center of gravity making it a great handling car.

RELATED: Here's Why You Shouldn't LS-Swap Your Mazda RX-7 (Just Yet)

7 Toyota Corolla AE86

The Toyota Corolla AE86 is a great drift car, but it takes a special skill to successfully drift one. No, your name does not have to be Takumi Fujiwara or Keiichi Tsuchiya, but unlike other drift cars, the AE86 does not have loads of power, meaning you're going to have to rely on momentum to keep the car sliding around - especially since the wheelbase is shorter than most of the other cars on this list.

Performance

And that means, you're going to have to drive it like a proper sports car, revving hard with your foot flat on the floor to sustain a controlled drift. It's a demanding car to have, but it's definitely one that would teach you to become a better sideways driver.

6 Nissan Cefiro

Basically, the Cefiro A31 is Nissan's equivalent of the Toyota Chaser. Long wheelbase, and rear-wheel-drive, and it comes with Nissan's legendary RB engine, albeit in a lesser, non-turbo RB24 - even though it can easily take the legendary twin-turbocharged straight-6 RB26DETT.

Performance

With that being said, what makes this car great is that some parts of the Cefiro A31 are interchangeable with the more expensive Skylines, such as the brakes, the LSD, and of course, the RB drivetrain, which could possibly give you close to Skyline levels of performance with a cheaper price tag.

5 Toyota Soarer JZZ30 / Lexus SC300

The good thing about Toyota is that they share engines with different platforms. Earlier, we mentioned the Toyota Chaser as a great drift car thanks to the 1JZ engine. Meanwhile, here's another car, albeit in a coupe platform, that also has a great potential for drifting thanks to the 1JZ, the Toyota Soarer JZZ30.

Performance

It's a heavy car, to be honest, but nonetheless, when you have more than 500 hp from the 1JZ, it could easily overcome the weight of the car and is seen by others as a bigger version of the Nissan S-chassis considering how good its potential for drifting is.

4 Mazda RX-8

The Mazda RX-8 was a huge letdown compared to the RX-7 when it was first released. It had less power, it got heavier, and its engine consumed a lot of oil. However, one thing that was good about the RX-8, is that it retained a great-handling chassis, which is perfect for doing some sideways action.

Performance

Furthermore, the RX-8 had a lot of potential as a tuner car, just like this example from Mad Mike Whiddett, the RX-8 called the "Badbul" is powered by a 20B three-rotor engine that produces 800 hp, and screams like a Formula One car.

3 Toyota Supra

Whether it's the A80 or the current BMW-esque A90, the Toyota Supra is a proven performer when it comes to drifting, and the most successful Formula Drift driver could attest to that. Fredric Aasbo throughout his drifting career has extensively used the Supra as his weapon of choice in his Formula D campaign.

Performance

It's really not surprising that he chose the Supra, as it had a balanced chassis, rear-wheel-drive, and a robust six-cylinder engine that has plenty of potential for power gains, with the latter characteristic being retained even though the new Supra has gained BMW power.

2 Nissan 350/370Z

While it's safe to say the 370Z is a great car, it's rather been largely overshadowed by the success of the GT-R supercar. But either way, the Nissan Z was Chris Forsberg's weapon of choice when he became a three-time Formula Drift champion.

Performance

The potential of the 370Z as a great tuner's car was also made evident when Forsberg's team successfully fitted a VK56 engine into the car's engine bay and made over 1,000 hp. If you're not familiar with engines, that actually came from a Nissan Patrol SUV.

1 Toyota 86

Last but not least is the Toyota 86. We've mentioned earlier that the AE86 was a great driver's car, and that's what the new 86 needed to live up to. Glad to say, it did live up to expectations, making it one of the purest handling sports cars of this generation.

Performance

For people who'd like to use the 86 as a drift car, doing engine swaps are common, as we normally see 2JZ or LS swaps for more power. The good news is, the chassis can handle insane amounts of power and still handle beautifully, making it ripe for modification. It's most likely to become a future drifting classic, just like the AE86.