Initially John's plan was to use the car as a dedicated track car, and with that intention he dropped the car off at GT-Art towards the end of 2005. However, before Gary actually started on the car John had spoken to a few other people about getting involved in the car, and had moved the goalpost: time to start going seriously OTT. "That's when things changed from going from 500hp to trying to get the maximum we could out of it," said John with a glint in his eye.
Although neither John nor Gary knew exactly how much they could achieve, they at least had a target to aim for: the UK record for a GTS was 11.2 seconds for a quarter-mile and that was with around 600hp. Mind you that although John had now decided he was going to take on the drag strips by storm, he'd never actually driven a car down the drag strip in his life. Luckily he likes to be different and relishes a challenge so was looking forward to being the first person to successfully take a competitive GTS down the drag strip in the UK. "We wanted to create a car that would break all the rules and take on the AWD cars," John stated. It was a heady mission.
The car was stripped to the bare shell and work on the six-month creation began in earnest. "To date in the UK nobody has really looked at a Skyline as a complete package: All they have gone for is pure horsepower figures," pointed out John. "I also wanted to include aerodynamics and suspension as well."
So while Gary was busy doing what he does best-building powerful Skyline engines-John concentrated on other key aspects of the project including the severe diet that the car had been put on, enforced with carbon fiber dashboard, doors, bonnet, boots and seats. He also called in the services of a top aerodynamics specialist from the world of F1 to give the car a professional evaluation. His report was the basis for the fabrication of the car's unique one-off carbon fiber front splitter, rear diffuser and adjustable rear wing. A session in the wind tunnel is scheduled for the near future to carry out fine bodywork tuning. British suspension super tuner, Leda, joined the party and produced some custom-built footwork pieces. This should tell you how seriously John was taking this project.
The first time on the rollers with the car running only 1.7bar (25 psi) of boost generated 580hp at the wheels. Further development and mapping under Gary's watchful and experienced eye has seen that figure leap up to 808hp at 2.7bar (39 psi), with the potential to run at 3bar which equals 900hp. And that's without even squeezing nitrous which should provide a further 200hp.