No one really cares about second place. And to the champion goes all of the glory If you win on Sunday, you sell on Monday. This is the mantra that entire brands have been built upon Lotus,
Ferrari, McLaren, even Ford revitalized its entire image by smacking down the prancing horse
with the GT40. Mazda became the pride of Japan when its 787B
screamed across the finish line of Le Mans you wear Nikes because LeBron does. You drink Red Bull
because Max Verstappen says so and in the early nineties you bought a skyline GT-R
because it didn't freaking lose today the R32 GT-R is a balanced, fun little sports car capable, understated
and full of potential in the 1990s it was unstoppable in racing form the R32 GT-R obliterated anything
it faced. Its performance was so dominating,
so monolithic, that it sent
everyone back to the drawing board. It changed the rules. The third generation
GT-R saved a struggling Japanese company and catapulted them into one of the most
respected names in the sports car universe,
all thanks to a top secret project known only as 9 0 1 Nissan created a monster. Its name was Godzilla
and this is how it was born. Look,
I'm not going to start at the beginning. You've already heard that story. There was a war crime. There was a merger. Then came the skylines. Then there were GT-Rs
and then there wasn't anything for a while no. Today our story begins in 1984. You see Nissan was struggling,
they were floundering, they couldn't sell cars
and they couldn't win races. The Nissan
Z had become bloated and boring. The skyline hadn't been worthy
of the GT-R badge in a decade the gas crisis of the seventies had changed Nissan
and not for the better. Enter Yutaka Kume
taking over as president of Nissan Motors in 1985
Kume takes the company by storm. You see Nissan was buried in bureaucracy
Kume directs his people to remember the customers
to stop making boxy boring cars and he plans to lead with
what is known as a spirit of hunger. Most companies in dire situations
go the easy route. They start cutting costs. They build more mass appeal cars, **coughs** Porsche
and usually they get out of costly enterprises like racing
but Kume wanted Nissan to double down. He knew that for Nissan
to be truly successful, they needed to raise their reputation
on the world stage. And there is no better way to do that
than to win. Kume and Nissan form a company wide
initiative known as the 901 Movement. Its goal is to create
the number one best performing cars in the world by 1990. This is the moment that changes
Nissan's history forever. You see in 1984 Nissan's performance division, Nismo, was born
and so was I. It was a pretty good year. Yasuharu Namba is given the task of
leading Nissan's new performance division. He had been driving and testing
Nissan race cars since 1958 and under his guidance Nismo entered touring car racing in 1985
with a serious intent to win. Their target was the All Japan Touring
Car Championship. Despite its name it was actually a global
competition that took place in Japan. So Ford, BMW, Ferrari, Porsche
all came to compete with Japan's best and for a long time
Nissan was Japan's best. Nissan dominated the series
with the C10 GT-R back in the sixties and in the seventies
they fought hard against Porsche. BMW and Ferrari in Group five, championing
the insane super silhouette skyline and then in 1985 the series was reborn with Group A Group A for those that are uninformed
is related to group B, you know, those wild rally racing monsters
everybody loves. You see the FIA organization
has specific classes or groups for racing cars on or off
road Group B was the more unlimited class and Group
A had tighter restrictions. They were cars that closely resemble
the ones consumers could buy from dealerships. They had limited modifications,
factory body panels, which means that they were a far
more effective sales tool for Nissan. If racing fans could see a car
that they could actually buy winning races and it was defeating global superpowers
like Ford and BMW, they would sell those cars. That is, if they could win and you see, that was the problem at the time. The GT-R name was all but a distant memory
for Nissan. The Nissan DR30 Skyline had been successful
in the Group five racing series, but group A meant
it had to come in largely stock form. So gone were all the wild aero parts and the DR30 could not keep pace. In the 1985 season,
it struggled to compete with the BMW 6-series, Honda Civic Si, the turbo Volvos
and even the Levin Corollas. Then in 1986 Nissan debuted the R31 the first RB powered skyline. it was boxy it wasn't very inspiring and today
it's pretty much all but forgotten. But it did take home the top spot in its very first race of the JTTC
and thanks to some weird scoring structures in the series
it won the overall championship in 1986. The team at Nissan starts to feel the electricity of victory. But that moment is short lived. As the years go on the series gains popularity and competition heats up more international manufacturers
start joining the fray. The E 30 BMW M3 is released
upon the tracks of Japan. Ford fields the Sierra and begins to win
races. The podiums of this Japanese championship
begin to be almost completely dominated
by foreigners. Nissan's grasp on the top spot
begins to weaken, Japan as a whole starts to take a backseat in its own championship
to truly dominate group A Nissan knew they needed a new car
and for that the 901 movement needs to show the world
what Nissan is truly capable of. Thanks to the efforts of the 901
project and Kume's leadership mid-eighties
Nissan was a technology powerhouse and it culminated
with the reveal of the Nissan Mid4 Nissan's ambitious
take on the word supercar. A mid engined wedge shaped sports car that might make some fans
of the NSX question if maybe Honda copied some of their homework off
of Nissan in the eighties. While it is a crime against humanity
that the Mid4 and the Mid4 2 never made it into production
as a result of its development, Nissan had a proper all wheel drive system
to implement into its new Halo car. They even had a revolutionary four wheel
steering system. And thanks to Kume's devotion
to catapulting Nissan to the upper echelons,
they had the vision they needed not just make another skyline,
but to bring back a legend all of the pieces were in place
Kume and Nissan had decided that now was the time
to revive the sacred GT-R badge. It had been 15 years since the silver
and red letters had graced the skyline and with Group A as the target
for the next generation skyline. From the outset, Nissan knew
exactly what they needed to build. They developed the RV platform
into a 2.6 liter inline six it was a monster of a power plant spinning two turbos and now putting around
320 horsepower from the factory and soaring to more like six
or 800 horsepower on the racetrack. And based on the group A class rules,
they knew that the 2.6 liter engine was the biggest engine
they could fit into their class and weight was always in mind
from the outset. Nowhere was that more apparent
than in the interior. It was Spartan. It was simple. It's well designed, but
sitting on those cloth seats and holding a pedestrian steering wheel,
you'd never think this was a Halo car. But the R32 GT-R was strictly business its body
design was simple aerodynamically. It was an improvement over the boxy
skylines of the eighties, and they had made panels out of aluminum
to stay within the group A weight target. But visually,
it was still a modest car in all regards. Only a small wing and a couple of ducts let you know that
this was a performance piece. But underneath that modest outward
appearance, spinning beneath the muted gray carpets laid the secret weapon
that was the key to the success the ATTESA ET-S Nissan's engineering
team had been paying attention to what was going on
in the world of sports cars. To them, Porsche had built the best handling cars on the market,
and their 959 was the most advanced road car ever built
so they bought one and tore it to shreds. What they found underneath
was the secret to its success its all wheel drive system, Look, all great art is stolen in some way. If you're not taking cues from
the competition, you're not going to win. So Nissan did exactly that. They employed a similar electro
hydraulic clutch to distribute power, but unlike the 959, which always sends
power to the front wheels, giving it too much understeer
for Nissan's tastes, the GT-R is all wheel drive
system would only engage the front wheels. When the rear wheels lost traction, it utilized computers
and G-force sensors to deliver power. Exactly where and when it was needed. The result was supreme power
delivery to the rear wheels, rocketing the GT-R down a front straight
and giving the car more oversteer, better driving behavior in turns,
but delivering unparalleled grip. In any situation,
it was the best of both worlds. While the RB 26 gets all the glory today, it really was this ATTESA system
that made the GT-R special. But not even Nissan themselves
could have predicted how this combination of power technology
and low weight would dominate. In 1990 a GT-R pulled up to the start line
on a racetrack in Japan. Its competitors are staring at its
four round red brake lights and for years
that's all they ever see of it. In sports,
rarely are there dominant performances and when they happen they make history Gretzky, Ali, Jordan. But you see all of them suffered losses the R 32 didn't. for years in group A in every race
the GT-R crossed the finish line first, leaving the best of Ford,
Honda and Toyota in the dust, not just taking the top spot
but typically filling the entire podium for the 29 races in 1990 to 1993, in group A driving in R 32 was practically cheating. The results cemented Nissan
as the performance car king of Japan. It fought off the foreign adversaries that had been making
a mockery of them on their home turf. It rebuilt
the honor of Japanese motorsport but it wasn't just group A, in 1991 it took home the trophy in the Spa
24 hour race. It dominated the Bathurst 1000 in 91 and 92. It went on to champion group
N Racing as well in 1989 best motoring set a Nurburgring lap
record of 8 minutes and 22 seconds. This was the fastest production car
for sale period but it was the GT-R's performance
in Australia that finally earned it The name Godzilla Godzilla is a funny name. It sounds menacing, brutal. Thanks to the movies. It conjures up images of entire cities
being melted with fire, but the word itself means gorilla-whale, which come to think of it,
kind of fits in the early 90s though, the movie
Dinosaur was a pop culture icon globally, a sort of mascot
for Japan to the outside world. So when the R32 GT-R
came to the shores of Australia and laid waste to everything it competed against,
spitting fire and screaming like a demon. It was only natural
that the local Aussie press gave it the nickname Godzilla the GT-R uprooted the reigning king of Australian
touring cars, the Ford Sierra the Sierra had just as much power
and weighed less, but it couldn't keep up with the R 32
as it catapulted on corner exit. Thanks to the ATTESA system, Godzilla's reign was so supreme
that the Australians demanded it be removed from competition,
separating it from the Fords and Holdens, which, yes, this is the key moment
that goes on to create the Australian V8 Supercars series. The R32 GT-R was finally the true
successor to the GT-R name. Not since the sixties had a Japanese car
earned so many trophies had become such a terrifying performer Kume and Team Nissan's plan had worked. The 901 movement had done
exactly what it had set out to do. Create a car that would win
on Sunday and sell on Monday and sell, it did from the outset, Nissan knew they had to make 5000 units
for group A homologation but not even they could predict
the reaction from the Japanese public. The GT-R was back
and it was destroying the competition. Everyone had to have one. They blew through those 5000 examples
in mere months, going on to sell over 40,000
R32 GT-R's over its production run Nissan's name had been revitalized. They were now the household name
for Fast Cars from Japan. The 901 movement had created the new twin
turbo 300ZX a luxurious rocket ship with two turbos and world beating performance. They had spawned the Nissan Silvia, a lightweight, practical sports car
with unlimited potential. The Pulsar GTiR, a rally inspired hot match that never got the credit it was due. And most importantly, they had created a monster
that laid waste to the world's stage that not only rebuilt
the reputation of a car company, but of the Japanese automotive industry
as a whole. Worldwide,
everyone had a new name to fear, and that name was Godzilla. Thanks for watching. Check out my other videos, subscribe
and have a great day, friends. See you in the next one.
