About

Tokyo Drift in a Barbie Car refers to a FAIL video of a man sliding down a driveway on a battery-powered ride-on toy at a high speed shortly before losing control and crashing into a bush. Since entering circulation in 2006, the footage has gained notoriety as a memorable example of drift-driving in unconventional vehicles.

Origin

On March 15th 2006, eBaum's World user ebaum uploaded a minute-long video titled Super Power Wheels,^[1] which shows a group of friends test driving a variety of Power Wheels-branded toy vehicles under difficult conditions, including one of a young man sliding down a slippery road on a Barbie-themed Corvette for kids. On the following day, the video was uploaded to YouTube (shown below).

Spread

That same month, the Barbie Corvette drift scene from the video was made into an animated GIF (shown below), with the earliest instance posted on a Russian GIF catalogue site^[2] on March 24th.

On March 25th, YTMND user HACaboose made a site titled "Barbie Corvette Crash", reusing the animation and adding the captions "No Brakes! No Brakes!"^[3]. As of March 2015, its has gained over 21,000 views. While not starting any lasting fad on the website, the animation was still used in at least 8 other YTMND sites between March and August 2006^[4]. Then on June 7th, 2006, YTMND user deadlyevans uploaded a site named "lol, Tokyo Drift?"^[5]. While being part of the Lol, Internet fad, the title is also a reference to 2006 movie Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift, released three days prior. As early as January 12th, 2007^[6], a demotivational image macro with the caption "Tokyo Drift, You can't do it in a Barbie car" began circulating online (shown below).

Between June 2007 and May 2008, this version became incorporated into at least three additional YTMND sites. One of the most well-known instances is a derivative of the Epic Maneuvers fad titled "Epic Tokyo Drift Maneuver"^[7], which has accumulated more than 21,000 views as of March 2015.

Various Examples

External References