Our customer John took his modified Nissan GTR to a recent track even in Miami. One thing I love about John is his desire for FUNCTION. When you look at his car, you see the crazy APR splitter, the GT rear wing, the functional KW suspension. John’s goal is to have the best well rounded GTR possible. Check out a couple snaps, a video, and John’s short story below. You can also view our detailed Nissan GTR Store Here.
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Read John’s Story Below
I don’t know about you, but people take pictures of and ask questions about my GT-R almost every time I stop. I don’t even have to stop some times; I see the phones and cameras coming out the window of a passing car. I have gotten used to it as part of my daily driving, but on a long trip it becomes a problem.
My son just completed his BA in Automotive Marketing and Management at Northwood University in West Palm Beach. Every year the have a car show and this year my son was in charge of the European imports and exotics. He had been bugging me for months to bring the GT-R down from MD for the show.
I looked around to see if I could get some track time down there and found out that Chin Motorsports was having a two day event at Miami/Homestead the weekend after the show. This worked great, the car show one weekend and the track the next (it was guaranteed no snow by Chin).
This was the first long trip in the GT-R. Mt wife over packed as usual and we had to bring are dachshund as well, not to mention some tools etc. for the track day. The GT-R actually has a very large trunk so I was able to fit everything in. Just before leaving I had covered the back area of the car with eDead sound proofing. I have the AAM V2 exhaust which is fairly loud but the eDead really did the trick.
Another thing I noticed about the car is that it has a pretty big fuel capacity (19.5 gallons). This gives the car a range of over 400 miles which would have been great if I wasn’t have to stop between fill ups for the wife and dog. The car was also better on gas than I thought, 23.2 miles per gallon while running mostly between 70 and 80 mpg.
Now the irritating part, I can’t put a number on it but I would guess the car cost me an extra couple of hours because of the attention it was getting. At one stop for fuel at the Love’s near the VA NC border a guy came up to me while I was fueling the car and began asking questions. When I finished I moved the car to the parking area where my wife was walking the dog and the guy followed me and started up with the questions including “how can I get into racing”.
I had to relieve myself so it was off to the restroom with him in tow. I thought he was going to follow me in but he didn’t. I thought he would leave and I would be free, but noooo! I came out of the bathroom and there he was. He followed me back to the car continuing to ask absurd questions. At this point he was joined by another interrogator. The questions continued until I finally had to break it off saying I still had a long way to go and needed to hit the road. They were just standing there as I drove away.
Besides these fuel stop interrogations and photo shoots there is the chase car problem. As I am sure you all know the car is a ticket magnet. As such I tend to cruise along in the right hand lane with the cruise set a few mph above the speed limit. The problem comes when I come upon a slower car, when I go to change lanes there is a car in the lane next to me. They aren’t going faster or slower, no they are staring at the car. I am blocked in and have to slow down, and so do they! This jail sentence can actually go on for several minutes, my sentence being commuted by a car behind the car next to (usually with NY plates) forcing the gawker to move along, Free at last, free at last!
Then there is the MAN. I have been pulled over for making an aggressive take off from a stop light. I never broke the speed limit but the man didn’t like the way I got there. After a lecture about doing that I got a “nice car” and I was on my way. He was in plain clothes so I knew he pulled me just to yank my chain. However, on my drive home from the track to where I was staying in West Palm Beach a State Trooper was suddenly a foot behind me. I was just cruising along on the turnpike in the right lane doing the speed limit but he wanted me so I pulled over. After producing the standard documentation he asked my why he pulled me over. I said I had no idea. He accused me of putting on my seat belt! I occasionally reach over with my right hand and pull the shoulder harness up and out to relieve the pressure on my bad right shoulder. Apparently he mis-took this as putting my seat belt on but I wasn’t going to argue with him. After about ten minutes of checking me and the car out he let me go without a word. Florida’s finest, I thought you couldn’t pull someone over just for a seatbelt violation, I guess not.
To make this long story short ( I won’t go into the speculations about what kind of car it is, I’m sure you have heard it all) when you go on a long trip in your GT-R add in some extra time for the “what kind of car is that” factor, or take the wife’s Volvo Station Wagon.
By the way, I have to thank Dan and Jade at www.vividracing.com for providing many of my parts at the best prices out there, and Mike, Clint and the rest of the guys at www.aamcompetition.com for helping with my car set up and tuning.
Hope you enjoyed reading my story, the names were withheld to protect the guilty,
John
