Godzilla’s illegal rave
1:01pm
The black box recorder and ‘Sporf’ (a utensil consisting of a spoon on one end, fork on the other, and knife on the side) are just two ways Australia has contributed to the betterment of society. But, there’s one stamp it’s left on car world more than anything else, the immortal nickname for the Nissan GT-R: ‘Godzilla’.
The Aussie press coined the term when Nissan drivers Jim Richards and Mark Skaife won the 1990, ’91 and ’92 Group A championships (the forerunner to V8 Supercars) in the legendary six-cylinder, twin-turbo, all-wheel-drive (with computer-controlled torque split and all-wheel steer) R32 Skyline. But, to then rub wasabi in the wounds, the Japanese also pummelled the V8 Fords and Holdens into red-faced submission during the ’91 and ’92 Bathurst 1000 races. Good old Oz has adopted it ever since and continued the Godzilla legacy. The fastest street-driven GT-Rs in the world reside here, and you have Australia’s unrelenting ‘hooning’ laws to blame.
“We’re in big trouble if the police see us,” the owner of the 1,300bhp white R34 (who wants to remain anonymous, and given the size of his muscles, it’ll stay that way) tells me. “Everything on this car is illegal. Current laws state that anything that’s not from the factory is a defect and eligible for a fine – so they’d end up crushing it.”
In their simplest form, these potty GT-Rs are two fingers to tyranny. The lack of freedom petrolheads now have has bred frustration and therefore a counterculture, just one where they’re using incredible engineering (seriously, the modified RB26 engines are masterpieces) to tell the authorities where they can shove their regulations.