Despite the popular belief that drifting originated in 1970s Japan, this driving technique was first practiced in Europe before 1950. Automotive legend Enzo Ferrari credits Italian driver Tazio Nuvolari as being the inventor of the four-wheel drift. Later, British racing driver Stirling Moss improved upon Nuvorali's technique, mastering the art of drifting through curves in Formula 1 races by steering with the accelerator pedal. More recently, drifting as a specialized competition became popular in Japan. It was most popular in the All Japan Touring Car Championship races. Famous motorcyclist turned driver Kunimitsu Takahashi was the foremost creator of drifting techniques in the 1970s. This earned him several championships and a legion of fans who enjoyed the spectacle of smoking tires. The bias-ply racing tires of the 1960s–1980s lent themselves to driving styles with a high slip angle. As professional racers in Japan drove this way, so did street racers.
Keiichi Tsuchiya, known as the "Drift King" (ドリフトキング, Dorifuto Kingu), became particularly interested by Takahashi's drift techniques. Tsuchiya began practicing his drifting skills on the mountain roads of Japan, and quickly gained a reputation amongst the racing crowd. In 1987, several popular car magazines and tuning garages agreed to produce a video of Tsuchiya's drifting skills. The video, known as Pluspy, became a hit and inspired many of the professional drifting drivers on the circuits today. In 1988, alongside Option magazine founder and chief editor Daijiro Inada, he helped to organize one of the first events specifically for drifting called the D1 Grand Prix. He has also drifted through every turn in Tsukuba Circuit.[citation needed]