Drifting A Real Mustang Through A Virtual World Using Oculus Rift Looks Like The Greatest Thing Ever

The possibilities provided by virtual reality headsets are as wide as your imagination is. The awesome video above was commissioned by Castrol, and in simple terms, it turns the Mustang into a gaming controller that allows the driver, Matt Powers, to drive through the virtual world presented to him on the Oculus Rift.

This is cool, because the hardest thing for simulators to replicate is sustained g-forces your body is subjected to while driving, however by actually driving and drifting through the world, no simulation is needed. The tricky bit comes from ensuring the GPS sensors work seamlessly with the headset to know exactly where the driver is and what direction he’s pointing.

It’s incredibly complex, and the guys who created it thought they’d got the whole thing sussed… until Powers turned up sideways and they realised everything dropped out of sync immediately. I recommend any fellow tech geeks check out the full writeup on The Verge, which makes for fascinating reading.

The behind-the-scenes video below also shows some of these problems, with Powers explaining how his body in the game was rotating slower than during the real life donut, so when he stopped he was looking forwards but facing the passenger seat! Trippy.