This 1044bhp Skyline is the fastest “Motul GT-R”

Motul and a Nissan Skyline are a marriage made in heaven. It’s hard to think of a better match. In Japan this combination has been gracing the racetracks for years, but did you know there is an R32 “Motul GT-R” in Florida with nearly 1100bhp? We caught up with the car’s owner, Jim Goritsas, to find out all about this incredible machine.

[Laughs] Yes, it’s been a bit of wild ride. I’m Greek but I was born in the US and I spent big chunks of my life swapping between the two places. My passion for cars started out in Corfu where I was part of the American Muscle scene after briefly having a professional soccer career. Later, when I moved back to the States, my son came up with the idea of buying a Japanese car. It seemed like a good Idea and we got a Nissan S14 with an SR20 engine in it. That engine was great, but we wanted more. We sourced a Nissan RB25 block from a GT-S T Skyline. It made the S14 come to life. At that moment I knew I needed a proper Skyline GT-R.

I had to wait until 2015 to buy one because of the US import ban and, even after that, I waited longer because I didn’t want to buy a car straight from an importer. That’s mainly because I had heard about some bad experiences and you’re always buying a car you can’t yet see. So, I waited until someone who had bought one was selling it. Sure enough, I came across a Nissan R32 GT-R owned by a petrolhead in Texas. Unfortunately, he was suffering from a terminal illness, which forced him to part ways with his beloved car. Even this R32 had a rough start from the importer. The owner had received the car in very bad shape and spent a lot of time, energy and money restoring it to its original glory. The first moment I had seen the car, I fell in love with it and bought it on the spot.

[laugh] Oh man, my friends still make fun of me about that to this day. The moment I got the car it had some basic bolt-on parts, but apart from that it was mostly stock. I told everyone I was going to keep it that way. Sure enough, you now know I failed miserably.

I did it in two stages, actually. For the first stage I just bolted on some high-performance pieces such as a Tomei 82/60 turbo and bigger injectors. I also rebuilt bits of the suspension. The result ended up being a 612bhp engine. The original plan was to build an RB30 engine for the car. I got in touch with an Australian company called Motorsports Mechanica and they were really excited to build the engine. However, an unfortunate family situation forced us to take a different road and halted the project for months. When I got the courage to get back to building again, we ordered a brand new Nismo N1 2.6l engine block and had it built in Australia. The block was completed with all Nitto performance internals, and a 76/75 dual ball bearing Precision Sportsman Series turbocharger. We added drive-by-wire throttle bodies (which were a nightmare to set up), a Hypertune intake and exhaust manifold and a twin-disc carbonfibre clutch. After we ran in the block, we did our first conservative dyno test and the car managed to produce 848bhp on the first try at 29-30 pound of boost. We did some more tweaking and, at 38 pounds of boost, it now puts out 1044 bhp but it’s still surprisingly drivable. The plan is to end up with a seven to eight second drag Nissan GT-R. We have also installed a nitrous kit but have yet to use it [laughs].

Yes, they are but the R32 Skyline has a trick up its sleeve. If you pull the fuse on the differential it cuts the power to the front wheels and becomes rear-wheel drive. So instead of pulling a fuse we added a switch to give this GT-R an extra party trick.

It’s a funny story actually. When I was building the car, I never really thought about getting sponsors, but Nitto Performance suggested we added a sticker to our car in exchange for some support and I got thinking of other companies. My first call was Motul. To put it simply, from its first oil change up until now every possible fluid in my GT-R has been Motul. I got in touch with Motul USA and they were very excited. I suggested the livery and they started by supporting our project. On top of that, to have this car as another Motul liveried Nissan GT-R is a pretty big honour.