It’s Monday morning at MotorTrend’s headquarters in El Segundo, California, and the Nissan R390 GT1 road car is rolling into the photo studio. There’s a strong emphasis on the Nissan because this car is one of one, and it’s here for a special gathering with MotorTrend video-on-demand subscribers and influencers. At the top of our guest list is Hiroshi Tamura, also known as “Mr. GT-R,” who’s here to talk about Nissan’s performance heritage and the GT-R’s 50th anniversary. But the party doesn’t stop there; just outside the photo studio there are about a dozen special Skyline GT-Rs—from R32s to a “Hakosuka”—brought out by our enthusiast friends and passionate subscribers.
Our guests not only got to ask Tamura-san all their burning questions about GT-Rs past and present, they also got to interact with American actor Sung Kang from the Fast and Furious franchise; Cody Walker, CEO of Reach out World Wide (ROWW); and Chilean Redbull BMX rider Coco Zurita. Car aficionado Sean Lee, who brought his unique R32-generation Nissan Skyline, shared his experience on Instagram, saying this was “Probably one of the coolest Mondays a car guy can ever have.” For a few hours, subscribers were able to ogle the R390 GT1 while sipping a cappuccino and talking to MotorTrend editors and car fanatics. The day concluded with a tour of the MotorTrend office and the laborious task of parking the R390 inside the office.
Having the Nissan R390 GT1 for one week in our office is as special as it gets. The car is visiting the U.S. and has been on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum, but made a quick trip down La Cienega Boulevard to visit our office before it goes back to its home at the Nissan Heritage Garage in Zama, Japan. With its 3.4-liter twin-turbo V-8 engine, the R390 GT1 produces 550 hp and 470 lb-ft of torque, enough to get from 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds—which was insanely quick in 1998, when the car debuted.
Given those impressive numbers, you might be wondering why Nissan only built one R390 road car. Like many automakers involved in sports car racing in the mid- to late-’90s, Nissan exploited a loophole in the GT1-class regulations that essentially allowed it to compete with a purpose-built race car as long as it was based on a road-going “production” car. Thus, Nissan built one street-legal version of the R390 GT1 to satisfy homologation rules so that it could race the mechanically identical race car version at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1997 and 1998. Today, the road car is in the care of the talented people and content creators at MotorTrend Group, sitting directly across from the Kurtis Sport Car that appeared on the cover of MotorTrend’s very first issue in September 1949.
Tamura-san’s visit couldn’t have been timed better. Last week, he revealed the new Nissan GT-R Nismo at the New York auto show, which was shown next to the GT-R 50th Anniversary Edition, celebrating the golden jubilee of the high-performance model. Although the chief product specialist of the GT-R, 370Z, and Nismo was tight-lipped about the next-generation GT-R, MotorTrend subscribers got to ask him questions and enjoyed hearing about his experiences developing Nissan’s performance models. Tamura-san also signed the center console of an R32 Skyline belonging to renowned car photographer Larry Chen.
But if the R390 is a critical player in Nissan’s performance heritage, the Skyline has a history like no other. The Hakosuka GT-R was a small, lightweight car launched in the late ’60s whose name comes from the Japanese words hako (boxy) and suka (an abbreviation of Skyline). It was the first Nissan to carry the GT-R badge, and with a 2.0-liter inline-six engine designed by the engineers at Prince Motor Company (the brand that actually started the GT-R), the Hakosuka produced 160 hp and 133 lb-ft of torque. It proved to be a monster on the track, as it won 52 races during its first three years of production. On the other hand, the R32 Skyline GT-R debuted in 1989 with all-wheel drive and an inline-six rated at 280 hp (though only because of the gentleman’s agreement among Japanese automakers). Like the Hakosuka, the R32 participaed in many races, including the Japanese Touring Car Championship, where it won 29 consecutive races in four seasons.
But why did we put on this event? To use Angus MacKenzie’s wise words, “Because we can.” Because being part of the best team in the business allows us to create experiences like these for our fans—those who support and follow MotorTrend as it evolves beyond the pages of the magazine. But perhaps most importantly, we’re able to do this thanks to followers like you, who log on to MotorTrend and not only read and watch our content, but also share your experiences. Just on our Instagram profile, we got over 1 million impressions thanks to the 38 stories that social media guru Carol Ngo posted over the course of five hours, and that’s not counting the pictures and videos that subscribers and influencers shared on their personal accounts.
Given the great relationships that we have with manufacturers, we’re able to bring crazy ideas from concept to reality. Big thanks to Nissan and its hard-working public relations team for allowing us to have one of their most precious heritage cars in our office for a week and for bringing Tamura-san along. This was the first of many experiences we will have in the future—and though a great amount of planning goes into creating experiences like this, we’re thrilled for what the next gathering will bring. Stay tuned.
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