‘GIM’KHANA: The Video Taking Korean Car Culture to the Next Level

A trailer for NMF 2026 — the Neotech Motor Festival in Gimcheon, June 13–14

Korea is one of the strictest countries in the world about what a car can do on a public road. So when I first watched a video of cars drifting through the streets of an actual Korean city, my first thought was the same as everyone else in the comments: how is this even allowed here?

The answer is a film called GYMKHANA GIMCHEON, and it bills itself as Korea’s first city gymkhana. It is not the birth of another motor festival. It is the announcement of a new motorsport city.

A Whole City as the Track

Gimcheon is a small city in North Gyeongsang Province, about 90 minutes south of Seoul by KTX. It is not a place anyone outside Korea has heard of, and that is exactly what makes the footage land. Ordinary intersections, real curbs, a working industrial complex, all turned over to tire smoke and precision driving.

The video moves through every corner of car culture in one go: drift, gymkhana, drag, touge, and bikes. An RX-7 and a Genesis Coupe slide through downtown. A Subaru WRX STI tears across the Gimcheon University campus and Samyeong-daesa Park. A BMW S1000RR superbike gets chased down by an IONIQ 6 N. A Tiburon and an Avante drag machine launch across Buhang Bridge, and an AE86 trades corners with an Accent TGR up a mountain pass.

Every Driver is a Creator

This is not a stunt crew flown in for the weekend. Every person behind the wheel runs their own channel. The drift sequences come from Dspec Korea and Motion Tuning, the gymkhana work from Redcon Korea, the bike from Raincho, the mountain-pass running from Miji Racer, and the IONIQ 6 N from Station B, all shot by director Studiozip. That matters, because it means the people building Korea’s car culture online are the same people building it on the street.

Pulling this off took more than drivers. Drifting and gymkhana on open public roads sits well outside what Korea normally permits, and Neotech got it approved with the backing of Gimcheon City and the local institutions whose roads became the course. The team behind it has said they were surprised it came together at all. So was I.

Why this Matters

Korea builds some of the best cars in the world, yet its own motorsport and tuning scene has always been the quiet cousin of the new-car business. The enthusiast culture that thrives in Japan, Germany, and the United States never got the same room to grow here. Neotech, the Gimcheon tuning company led by CEO Lee Jun-myung, has spent years trying to change that, and GYMKHANA GIMCHEON is its boldest move yet.

The video is a trailer. The main event is NMF 2026, the Neotech Motor Festival, also called the Gimcheon Motor Culture Festa. It runs June 13–14 across Neotech’s headquarters and the surrounding industrial complex, organized by the Korea Automobile Tuning Association with support from Gimcheon City. Expect curated tuning cars, drift and gymkhana show runs with ride-alongs, a street car-meet zone, motorcycles, future-mobility and XR booths, influencer fan meetings, performances, and food trucks.

The cars from the film return to Gimcheon in June. If the trailer is anything to go by, this is the closest Korea has come to giving its car culture a stage of its own. Event details are at www.nmf2026.com.

NMF 2026 — Gimcheon Motor Culture Festa takes place June 13–14 at Neotech’s headquarters in Gimcheon. The Korean Car Blog covers the culture, design, and industry behind Korea’s automotive world for a global audience.