6 replies to this topic

[Joe Bosworth]

In another TNF thread there is a historical reference to the term “Four Wheel Drift”.

Mike Lawrence writes in “Exploding the Myth”, 1/08/07 that, “It is likely that you believe that “four-wheel-drift” is an old term. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded instance is in a book called “In Track of Speed” ...It is likely that the term was used verbally among motor racing people, but its appearance in print dates only from 1957”.

With regards to the veracity of both Mike Lawrence and the Oxford this is quite incorrect.

I have in hand “The Sports Car Its Design and Performance” by Colin Campbell. This was first published 1954; my copy is of the fourth impression of 1955.

Page 101 has a paragraph entitled, “The Four Wheel Drift”. This starts out with, “The four wheel drift is a familiar sight to the post-war race-going crowds, but the manner in which it works is generally not understood.” Campbell goes on with a most learned explanation with diagrams continuing to page 106.

Now, I won’t make claim that this is the first printed reference but it clearly precedes the Lawrence/OED reference.

Anyone wishing to find an earlier printed reference in order to keep historical records true?

Regards

[Allan Lupton]

I posted the following in that other thread:

Slight digression, but "a very fine four-wheel-drift (the real thing)" was a part of a Motor Sport caption of Ascari at Spa in the July 1952 issue (page 333) and that's unlikely to be the first appearance in print.
Printed later, but photographed earlier are Klementaski photos of Fangio at Reims in a 159, the classic 1952 shot of Hawthorn at Goodwood in the Cooper and a 1938 shot of B Bira in Romulus at Crystal Palace (Frostick wrote "may it serve as a reminder that the four wheel drift is not a post-war invention")

[DOHC]

There's also Enzo Ferrari's famous recounting of the story of Nuvolari's driving (in an inimitable, colorful "Italian English"). Although I'm not sure when he told this story, it's a very early reference and hardly an afterconstruction. See http://www.nivola.org/nuv1e.asp for further material.

After the first contests fought with he (I was a driver in that period), I began to ask me what had of special that little, serious man. Therefore a day I ask to him to make a test with he on the Alfa Romeo 1750 of my scuderia (at the ciruit of "Tre Province" at Porretta in 1931).

At the first curve I had the precise feeling that Tazio had mistaken the curve and that we will finish out of the road. I became rigid in the wait of the collision. Instead we found again ourselves to the rectilinear entrance of the succesive curve with the machine online. I watched Tazio: his face was the same, serene, normal, not the one of who is escaped to an accident. At the second and third curve the impression was the same. To the quarter or fifth curve I began to understand.

With the corner of my eye I watched his legs: Tazio did not raise the foot from the accelerator during the curve! And curve after curve I understood his secret. Nuvolari boarded the curves before of what the driver instinct suggested to me. And he boarded it in an unusual way, aiming the "snout" of the car towards the inner margin of the curve, just in the point where the curve began. With the accelerator sunked and the correct gear inserted before this terrifing manoeuvre he skidded the car, taking advantage of the push of the force centrifuge and contrasting it with the traction of the wheels. For the entire arc of the curve the "snout" of the car was brushing the inner limit of the road. When the curve finished and the straight strech was opened, the car was already in normal position in order to continue the race, without the necessity of corrections and to the maximum possible speed!

(My emphasis)

This indicates that, while only Nuvolari mastered the technique in 1931, the technical understanding was, contrary to Campbell's account, emerging already in the 30's. Of course, this account doesn't contain the term "four wheel drift," but it is very reasonable to assume that the term was used within motor racing circles earlier than the mid fifties. Given Jenks's understanding of motor racing one could guess that he might have used the term in writing. Any takers?

[Joe Bosworth]

DOHC

Thank you for bringing the fabulous tranlation!!

Also thanks for mentioning Jenks. On my way to locating the Campbell reference I had already perused my original copy of the 1958 Jenks classic "The Racing Driver". In that he describes by words, diagrams and graphs the concept of side force and slip angles and goes to lengths to talk about u'and o' steer. But not a beep about FWD, (four wheel drift).

Your posting made me go further. As prolific a writer as Jenks was it is completely impossible to to come remotely close to reading even 1%. You made me go back to his all time great descrption in the June 1955 Motor Sport story of his Mille Miglia ride with Moss. In that he talks about u' and o' steer. In places he talks about, "... he would control the car with throttle and steering wheel long after all four wheels had reached the breakaway point..." and "...with all four wheels sliding..." and "... an enormous slide...". But nothing on FWD.

I then went to the 1997 retrospective of Jenks and his writings, "Jenks A Passion for Motor Sport". A quick scan reading finds nothing on FWD.

So I don't totally rule out Jenks as a source but I don't think so.

For what it is worth, Jenks might have been the first to describe driving effort in "tenths" with his Mille Miglia writing but I will leave it to others to try to find an earlier reference.

Regards

[D-Type]

If it wasn't Jenks who coined the term, could it have been Gregor Grant?

I know that I have known the term since I could barely read and I had a copy of a book by him titled The Boy's book of Motor Racing or similar and it may have been in there that I first came across it.

I doubt that it would have been one of the prewar scribes - Sammy Davis, Rodney Walkerley or the like as their vocabularies would have been fixed in a time-warp.

[Roger Clark]

In Autosport, September 15th 1950, John Bolster wrote an article about cornering technique in which he described the technique of the four wheel drift. He used them in a way that suggests it would be familiar to his readers.

In "The Design and Behaviour of the Racing Car" Laurence Pomeroy says that the technique first became established with the 1938 Mercedes-Benz and Auto-Union cars which were the first to be consciously designed as to understeer. I can't remember where, but I am sure that I have read something by Denis Jenkinson in which he broadly agrees with Pomeroy but says that Nuvolari used the technique even earlier. There are certainly photographs of the 1932 French Grand Prix where he appears to be using it in the Tipo B.

[DOHC]

The quote due to Enzo Ferrari is from his book Piloti che gente which was published in 1985.

There's also a translation into proper English, when the passage above reads:

At the first bend, I had the clear sensation that Tazio had taken it badly and that we would end up in the ditch; I felt myself stiffen as I waited for the crunch. Instead, we found ourselves on the next straight with the car in a perfect position. I looked at him, his rugged face was calm, just as it always was, and certainly not the face of someone who had just escaped a hair-raising spin. I had the same sensation at the second bend. By the fourth or fifth bend I began to understand; in the meantime, I had noticed that through the entire bend Tazio did not lift his foot from the accelerator, and that, in fact, it was flat on the floor. As bend followed bend, I discovered his secret. Nuvolari entered the bend somewhat earlier than my driver's instinct would have told me to. But he went into the bend in an unusual way: with one movement he aimed the nose of the car at the inside edge, just where the curve itself started. His foot was flat down, and he had obviously changed down to the right gear before going through this fearsome rigmarole. In this way he put the car into a four-wheel drift, making the most of the thrust of the centrifugal force and keeping it on the road with the traction of the driving wheels. Throughout the bend the car shaved the inside edge, and when the bend turned into the straight the car was in the normal position for accelerating down it, with no need for any corrections.

Naturally, the translation is post-1985, so the fact that the term FWD occurs in it is of no historical significance, other than as a testimony to the fact that Nuvolari indeed used the technique systematically in 1931. But I think we already knew that.