Student-built drifting DeLorean is the best way to celebrate ‘Back to the Future Day’

What happens when you set a team from Stanford University’s Revs Centre loose on an old DeLorean? Sheer unadulterated awesomeness, apparently.

Dubbed The MARTY (Multiple Actuator Research Test bed for Yaw control), the project saw the team making massive changes to the original DeLorean including giving it the ability to drive itself.

In order to so, a number of features were modernised and modified with a power-steering motor and rack among the features added.

Once they’d done so, they took MARTY out on the track and proceeded to do some pretty sick doughnuts.

Why’s that necessary? Well, as 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.”

We can’t really imagine why an autonomous car would need to drift for its occupants’ safety, but we’re happy there are people working on it.