A GT-R Enthusiast's Nirvana - The 2019 GT-R Festival
- Patrick James
- Oct 30, 2019
- 4 min read
Picture the smile on the face of Augustus Gloop standing at Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory door and you’ll have a good idea how I felt waking up at 4am to fly to Sydney for the 2019 Nissan GT-R Festival.
Upon entering Sydney Dragway after a seemingly forever-long flight and drive from the airport, my heart beat harder than a winning greyhound after a race.
Ever since I’ve been ‘into’ cars, no single model or family has had me quite as hooked as the GT-Rs. Safe to say, I was in my idea of absolute paradise.
Over the years, I have come to know almost everything about them, from the various models, colours and options, to the most appropriate modifications to unleash the full might of the RB26 engine.
I can’t quite pinpoint the reason for my obsession with GT-Rs. My generation grew up with Gran Turismo and The Fast and The Furious franchise, and while of course these were major influences in my love affair, I still can’t say they are the main reason for my loyalty and passion.
As I’ve matured and experienced different sub-groups within the car scene I’ve realised one thing. What has me hooked on GT-Rs is the functionality and performance that each model encompasses. The team at Nissan was groundbreaking when releasing a six-cylinder twin-turbocharged engine in the R32 while other competitors, such as Mitsubishi and Toyota, focused on mastering the art of the four-banger.
Kōzō Watanabe, a man who I have come to admire, was responsible for the design of the R33 and R34 GT-Rs. Not only did he design from the ground up the R33 and R34, he was in charge of the development of the R32 GT-R at the hallowed Nürburgring in Germany.
I could write about it all day, but the point I’m trying to make is that GT-Rs were designed and built with 110% passion and commitment. Towards the late 2010s and increasingly so nowadays, manufacturers build cars with a commercial interest at heart. Fair enough, they need to make money.
However, what makes the late 90s and early 00s so special, particularly in the Japanese import scene, is that all performance cars were built with absolute fervor and with the driver’s enjoyment in mind. These factors were at the car’s roots and something that sets it apart.
The cars were designed, styled, engineered and built by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts. And that’s why this period in car marking is my all-time favourite.
However, back to the event.
Upon entering Sydney Dragway, my good friend Peter from Kuro Sora Blog and owner of an R34 GT-R and I immediately felt we were part of something special.
The heady and dense smell of ethanol racing fuel, paired with an already eclectic mix of cars driving towards the entry point made my heart pump adrenaline.
We were not let down.
The first car I spotted was a Group A R32 GT-R, famous for thrashing records around Australia’s most famous race tracks.
Flanked by a full-carbon time-attack R34 and potentially the world’s most famous street GT-R, JUN II, this was a higher calibre event than anything I’d ever seen, and it was only the very start.
It wasn’t long before we arrived at the holy grail of Skylines, and one of the best-known Japanese cars ever made – the R34 GT-R Z-Tune.
Just one of 15 ever created, I have never had such a thunderstruck reaction to seeing any car in my entire life. I was starstruck, dumbfounded and speechless due to unfathomable excitement and disbelief. I was in such close proximity to greatness.
Recently given a full ground-up restoration and repaint in Midnight Purple III by Nissan’s Nismo Omori factory in Yokohama and owned by GT-R workshop V-Spec Performance, it is only fair to say the car was a pure work of art.
Although anyone can gawk and admire the car as a whole, it takes a real enthusiast to appreciate the small details.
The cost of the parts on this car total to the hundreds of thousands, with a small bonnet air duct setting customers back a cool $1400 alone.
GT-R enthusiasts and car collectors alike have valued the car at over $1 million, which is by no means an understatement.
If the Z-Tune wasn’t enough to send fans into meltdown, V-Spec Performance’s display also had a Midnight Purple R33 GT-R 400R, one of 44 created, and the legendary Mine’s R34 N1 demo car, one of only three in existence.
For me, the Mine’s car was the standout. Referring to earlier comments about building cars for passion and enjoyment, Mine’s were a standout tuning shop in the late 90s and early 00s.
Famed by the infamous Option DVD and accompanying magazine, which I came across while scouring YouTube for any R34 GT-R content I could find as a kid, Mine’s are known for producing the best of anything they lay their hands on.
It was so special being able to closely examine a car designed by a workshop I idolise.
Other event standouts were Terry’s collection of R32, R33 and R34 GTR N1’s, Bobby’s Z-Tune and the other internet-famous drag monsters such as B2R Motorsport's WARGTR.
The rest of the day was taken up taking in the atmosphere, checking out the displays, talking to owners, enjoying the skidpan and dragstrip action and immersing ourselves in the best GT-R experience Australia has to offer.
My desire to get over to Japan in 2020 for the annual R’s Meeting run by GT-R Magazine has grown tenfold since attending the event.
Until then, I will have to continue absorbing all GT-R content I can consume and hope that I can afford one before America can legally import them.
Thanks to Peter from Kuro Sora Blog for the fantastic photos. A keen enthusiast and font of knowledge, his blog shares news from the local and international car scene. He has some great posts from his recent trip to the Land of the Rising Sun, which can be found here.
To see more about our trip to the GT-R Festival, enjoy my video recap below.
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