Widebody Nissan Z GT500 Race Car Will Battle the Acura NSX, Toyota Supra in Super GT
The ultimate Z?
After years and years of waiting, the new Nissan Z is finally here, and now it's goin' racin'. After debuting Sunday at Fuji International Speedway in Japan, the Nissan Z GT500 race car will take part in the famous Super GT Series' 2022 season.
Set to replace the iconic NISMO Nissan GT-R—which enjoyed the longest run in the Japanese series of any Nissan car—the manufacturer's new GT500 racer will battle against the Toyota Supra and Honda NSX Type S in the ultra-competitive GT series.
According to Nissan, this new race car is part of its "NEXT" transformation plan announced last year, in which the automaker highlighted a specific plan to overhaul its product lineup, image, marking strategies, and even motorsports programs.
“The Nissan Z GT500 symbolizes Nissan’s spirit of taking on challenges and bringing excitement to life," said Nissan COO Ashwani Gupta in a press release. "Through our racing efforts we continue to innovate our cars and we race to win with the same daring we have displayed so many times over the years.”
Japan's Super GT series features two primary racing classes, GT300 and GT500, with the latter featuring the faster, more powerful cars. However, the field of cars is restricted when it comes to weight, downforce, and total horsepower output, with GT500 cars putting out around 650 hp from heavily managed engines with spec turbochargers.
It's obvious that this racing variant of the Z shares little to nothing with the street-going Z, but it's still a very neat machine—sort of a Z on steroids if you will. The normal Z is powered by a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 that produces 400 horsepower, and it'll be available with a six-speed manual transmission.
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