Stanford Turns a DeLorean Into a Drifting, Driverless Car

As reported by Engadget: This isn't from some weird movie franchise mashup entitled Back to the Future IV: Stanford Drift. No, Stanford's Revs Center simply decided to experiment on an old DeLorean, giving it the ability to fly drift all on its own. The car, which the team decided to called MARTY (Multiple Actuator Research Test bed for Yaw control) as an homage to B2F, was heavily modified and modernized. DeLoreans are old cars, and they found that it had severe limitations: for instance, it was understeering, so they had to equip it with a power steering motor and rack.

As for why they wanted to design a driverless car that's good at drifting in the first place, well, Revs Center director Chris Gerdes told Wired: "We think automated vehicles should be able to execute any maneuver within the physical limits of the vehicle to get out of harm's way." In other words, they believe autonomous cars should be able to drift if it means saving the passenger's life. If the idea of a drifting DeLorean sounds weird, just watch the team do some perfectly executed donuts in the video below.