Finnish Mercedes W203 Drifting Wagon: Enjoy the Madness
The Black Smoke Racing Mercedes serves up a hazy platter of diesel particulate and shredded tires with a side of rod knock.
Some people apparently believe that Finland doesn’t exist. This is, of course, absurd. However, given the automotive gifts of Finnish drivers, we could almost believe they’re raised in captivity. Given a steady diet of seat time on icy Finnish roads and long winters to build absurd cars, the Finns undoubtedly end up being automotive apex predators. Yeah, sorry/not sorry for the pun.
To that end, observe Teemu Peltola, the progenitor of Black Smoke Racing. The Finnish madman made waves on the internet a few years ago with his smoke-belching W123 drift-wagon. A couple years ago, he upped the ante with this OM648-powered W203 wagon.
Peltola has now drifted the W203 for a couple years and, as one does in drifting, has littered drift courses with piles of broken parts. This video documents his final event of 2017 at Mantorp Raceway in Sweden and he does indeed break more things.
However, that hardly slows the Finnish adventurer. From smoking like Dick Trickle while sliding sideways to tandem-drifting with another Mercedes Wagon, Teemu has this showman thing on lockdown. The whole time, black soot shoots up over the windshield from the OM648’s “hater pipe.”
He misses qualifying for the drift event proper with a broken driveshaft guibo, but he gets it back together for some open-track drifting. And that is where both Teemu and the W203 come alive. He skates around a spun BMW and looks utterly in control while tossing the two-ton people-hauler around Mantorp’s tight corners and long drag-strip straightaway.
Unfortunately, the OM648 calls it quits, but it does so at the end of the last session. Perfect timing, right? That means Teemu can retire to imaginary Finland to rebuild it bigger and stronger for next year. And who doesn’t want that?