By Michael Berenis

Tampa Sports Car Examiner

Only produced for half a year, the Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R was a pillar of JDM performance for its time. Setting the pace for the following Skyline lineage, you can see the face of the 2000GT-R even in today’s R35 GT-R. Read more about the classic at Tampa Sports Car Examiner.

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

Neither one of these Japanese heavyweights was made for drag racing, and there’s obviously a huge—like 315K—price difference. It would have been more fun to watch them duke it out on a road course, but this is still an interesting match-up. I got big kick out of the narrator, who said that the LFA’s brakes are “powerful enough to stop the rotation of the earth.” That’s pretty good stuff.

Lexus LFA vs. Nissan GT-R Drag Race

By Michael Berenis

Tampa Sports Car Examiner

The epic battle of Germany and Japan in the world of automotive supremacy lives on in modern supercars. Racing a Nissan GT-R against the Porsche GT3 RS around Nürburgring, we get to see the various attributes of each vehicle tested thoroughly.  Which one would you buy? Read more about the competition at Tampa Sports Car Examiner.

By Ryan Douthit

Drivingsports.com

Seems like all too often basketball players have their priorities out of whack when it comes to buying a car with their hard-earned cash. Escalades with dubs. Porsches with spinners. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. I think I even saw a donked Land Rover, on the cover of DUB no less. Taste, it seems, has nothing to do with talent on the court.

It was therefore quite refreshing when we came across this tastefully tuned 2010 Nissan GT-R, owned by NBA Rookie Forward for the Portland Trail Blazers, Jeff Pendergraph. It was upgraded by no other than the mad mixologist Tim Bailey of COBB Surgeline Tuning. The interview begins at around the 4-minute mark of this episode of Driving Sports TV’s Extra! weekly news program.

For the full uncut 10-minute interview, including discussion of Pendergraph’s other cars, his secret desire to be The Stig, and more, pick up the new Driving Sports TV iPhone App. It’s now available in the Apple App Store and features weekly updates, fresh wallpapers for your iPhone or iPod Touch and more and other bonuses.

Extra! Audi RS5, Jaguar XKR, NBA Nissan GT-R

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

StreetFire had tons of options when we were looking for our latest project car, but we started big, and partnered with YoParts and GMG Racing to make sure the finished product is beyond ferocious. But the best part? You can win our baby! Watch this clip to find out how you can enter!

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

OK, this is hardly the first time that I’ve seen a fast bike pitted against a hot car. But it’s not like I’ve never eaten tacos, drank booze, or gotten laid before, and I’m not even close to sick of any of those things. And while you probably know—or, em, should know—how it’s going to end up when these hot pieces of hardware square off, it’s still great fun to watch. Personally, I was blown away watching Ducati’s 1098 rip by a GT-R on full afterbuner. I mean, I know how fast Godzilla is. When I drove Nissan’s halo car, I was blown away by its insane quickness, and I talked about it to anyone who would listen, and plenty of people who were just pretending to, for days afterward. But when something tips the scales at 400lbs and sports 150 horsepower at the wheel, it’s not exactly slow, and it passes the GT-R like a rifle bullet passing a horse and buggy. Amazing…

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

Most of the time, the soundtrack of in-car rally footage is either just the sound of the engine—which is great—or the kind of crappy Euro-techno that makes me want to pierce my eardrums with an ice pick. But in this clip from the Targa Newfoundland Rally you can hear the co-driver’s directions along with the report of the STILLEN GT-R’s motor, which I think is completely awesome. I mean, I know it’s par for the course in rallying, but it still blows my mind to think that drivers are pushing this hard without knowing exactly where they’re going.  And how cool is it to see this bad-ass machine ripping through a neighborhood? Obviously, it’s not the kind of thing you want to do if the roads aren’t closed, but it made my inner hooligan smile…

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

East Texas Muscle Cars, a Texas hot rod shop, has announced its intentions to build a 2010 V6 Camaro capable of running with and beating the vaunted Nissan GT-R on the Nurburging in Germany. The GT-R has been the apple of every clean-hands magazine and website since it first came to the US, and the car has backed up a lot of its heady performance claims by laying down crazy numbers on road courses (especially the Green Hell) across the world. The Nissan has whopped on stuff way out of its price range. Frankly, we’re pretty sick of hearing about it.

This Camaro, equipped with the Direct Injection V6 that makes a healthy 300hp stock, will be receiving several upgrades, the most important of which will be a turbocharger. Fiddling with these DI engines is a new frontier of hot rodding, so we’re interested to see how this whole thing works out. The company claims it’s going to ship the Camaro over to Germany with a GT-R to back up its claims once the project is finished. This could be totally awesome as the Camaro is sure to be seen as an epic underdog in this match up. Edmunds broke the story and has many more details here.

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

It takes a fast car to make Godzilla look sluggish, but Bugatti’s Veyron, to put it mildly, is one hell of a fast car. It also costs a million bucks more than Nissan’s monster, and every one of those dollars is on display in this clip. I think this kind of comparison, however unfair and kind of silly, is cool because without a benchmark—and let’s face it, a clock can be kind of a boring one—getting some perspective on the Veyron’s insanity-provoking quickness is almost impossible. Bravo to the guys from EVO Magazine for getting to pull of this awesome “test.”

By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

Have a look at the image below. Yes, it’s one of the GT-Rs I produced for SEMA last year and yes it sticks with some of the tried and true JDM brands that I trust and love. One of them is Endless brakes. It also so happens that the midnight purple GT-R I made for Mobil 1 ran Endless brakes, and yes it also so happens that my gold S2000 runs Endless brakes (although re-badged as J’s Racing).

So why do these cars run Endless brakes? Why do so many top cars at the shows and in the magazines run Endless brakes? Why do so many Japanese tuning shops make brakes that are re-branded Endless brakes to promote their brand? Is it because Endless is trendy and cool? Because it is JDM Tite YO!?

Continue reading "Dispelling a Popular Misconception: Endless Brakes" »