The Nissan R390 GT1 is Still the Fastest Nissan Ever Made
1997 Nissan R390 GT1 Race Car
Photo: Morio via Wikimedia Commons
Homologation is a wonderful thing when you’re talking about motorsports. In certain classes of racing, automakers can only enter race cars that have street-legal production models. That also means that if they want to enter a ridiculously fast car designed specifically for track racing, they have to make some streetable ones and sell them. In the GT1 Class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, homologation gave us awesome cars like the Ford GT and McLaren F1.
In the late 90s, Nissan built the R390 GT1 to enter this class at Le Mans, and so it had to produce some road worthy versions. The automaker only produced two, making the R390 GT1 one of the rarest Nissans. One is stored at a Nissan facility and the other was sold at a private auction, where it was originally offered for $1,000,000, making it the most expensive Nissan ever sold.
1997 Nissan R390 GT1 Race Car
Photo: Morio via Wikimedia Commons
The road car packed a mid-rear-mounted twin-turbocharged V8 that was capable of getting the R390 to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds and 100 mph in only 6.5 seconds. Top speed was recorded at 220 mph. That’s faster than any other production car out of Japan has gone since, and faster than the Jaguar XJ220 and RUF CTR2.
It’s crazy to think that this Nissan built in 1997 is still the fastest production car from Japan. Do you think faster cars are in store for the future? Let us know in the comments!
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