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Few names are more closely tied to Monster Energy-liveried drift machines than Vaughn Gittin Jr., whose partnership with the brand dates back to 2010 and helped turn a factory Mustang platform into a full-time competition drift car. Formula Drift itself only dates back to 2003, yet muscle car platforms quickly became the backbone of the sport. This image captures exactly the kind of sideways moment that built that reputation.

A single frame catches the exact instant when a muscle car stops behaving like one: tires smoking, rear end kicked sideways, green and black Monster Energy graphics blurring past a wall of tire barriers. It’s the kind of image that gets shared a thousand times without anyone bothering to ask who’s actually behind the wheel. For over a decade, one name has been more closely tied to Monster-liveried drift machines than any other, and his path to that seat started with a Mustang most enthusiasts wouldn’t have looked at twice. The question this photo really poses isn’t about the car at all — it’s about how far someone has to push a factory pony car before it stops being a muscle car and becomes something else entirely.

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From Grand National to Sideways Icon

Vaughn Gittin Jr. announced a multi-year partnership with Monster Energy in April 2010, putting the brand’s colors on his Ford Mustang for the Formula Drift series. That October, at Irwindale’s Toyota Speedway — known to drift fans as the House of Drift — he wheeled a 1,200-horsepower Monster Energy Mustang to his first championship, and a second title followed in 2020. The partnership turned a factory pony car nameplate into one of drifting’s most recognizable liveries.

Why Muscle Cars Took Over Drifting

Formula Drift itself is younger than most of the muscle cars competing in it, launched in 2003 by Jim Liaw and Ryan Sage with its first event run in May 2004 at Road Atlanta. American muscle platforms like the Mustang caught on fast in the series because their front-engine, rear-drive layout and abundant torque suit the sideways, tandem-battle format drift judging rewards — proof that a car built for straight-line bragging rights can be just as at home going sideways.

Formula Drift’s tandem battle format, where two cars run nose-to-tail through a course while judges score line, angle, and style, rewards exactly the kind of controlled chaos captured in a shot like this. Muscle car builds dominate the sport’s top ranks in part because their V8s deliver the low-end torque needed to keep the rear tires spinning through a long sweeping corner, something smaller turbocharged imports have to work much harder to replicate.

The Car Behind the Livery

The Mustang wearing that Monster Energy paint scheme isn’t anything close to a stock factory car by the time it hits a Formula Drift course. Cars built for the series typically run heavily modified suspension geometry to achieve steering angles far beyond what a showroom Mustang could manage, along with reinforced chassis components to handle the sustained sideways loads a tandem battle puts on a car lap after lap. What starts as a factory pony car platform ends up closer to a purpose-built race car wearing Mustang bodywork.

RTR and the Business of Drifting

Gittin Jr. didn’t just drive for Monster Energy — he built RTR Vehicles around the same Mustang platform that made him famous in Formula Drift, turning his on-track identity into a street-legal performance brand. That crossover between competition livery and consumer product is common in modern motorsports, but few drivers have managed to make their competition car’s paint scheme as instantly recognizable to casual fans as Gittin Jr. did with the green-and-black Monster design.

Judged on Style, Not Just Speed

Unlike a drag race or road course event, Formula Drift doesn’t reward whoever crosses a line first. Judges score each run on line, angle, and style, meaning a driver has to thread a course sideways with precision rather than simply generating the most smoke. That scoring system is exactly why a single frozen frame — tires smoking, car canted hard into a corner — can capture the entire point of the sport in a way a lap-time sheet never could.

Torque Over Turbos

The reason V8-powered muscle car platforms dominate Formula Drift’s top rankings comes down to how the engines make power. A big-displacement V8 delivers strong torque low in the rev range, which is exactly what a driver needs to keep the rear tires spinning through a long, sweeping corner without the throttle response lag that can catch a smaller turbocharged engine off guard mid-drift. It’s the same characteristic that made these engines popular on a drag strip decades earlier, just applied sideways instead of in a straight line.

A Livery That Outlived Plenty of Sponsorships

Sponsorship deals in motorsports rarely last more than a season or two, but the Monster Energy partnership on Gittin Jr.’s Mustang has stretched across more than a decade of Formula Drift competition. That kind of longevity is rare in a sport where sponsors come and go with a driver’s results, and it’s a big part of why this particular green-and-black paint scheme is instantly recognizable even to people who’ve never watched a full Formula Drift event.

Not the Only Muscle Car in the Field

Gittin Jr.’s Mustang has never had the drift scene to itself. Chevrolet Camaros and Dodge Challengers have run competitively in Formula Drift and its sister series for years, giving fans a genuine rivalry between Detroit’s modern pony and muscle car platforms on a stage none of their original designers ever imagined when the cars were built. That cross-brand competition is part of what’s kept American muscle relevant in a motorsport that could just as easily have been dominated entirely by Japanese imports.

What Makes a Photo Like This Work

The best drift photography freezes a moment that’s genuinely unstable — a car balanced on the edge of control, smoke pouring off tires that are being asked to do something they were never designed for. That’s part of why an image like this travels so far online, well beyond the drift community itself. It doesn’t require any knowledge of Formula Drift’s scoring system or Gittin Jr.’s championship history to register as impressive; it just requires eyes.

Whether that trade-off is worth it depends entirely on what a driver is chasing. A Formula Drift build gives up daily usability, fuel economy, and most of the comfort a factory Mustang buyer would expect, in exchange for a car built to do exactly one thing extremely well under a very specific kind of pressure.

Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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