The Group A R32 GT-R entered 29 races in Japan’s touring car championship between 1990 and 1993, and it won all of them. Nissan’s own heritage history calls the car “the undisputed champion” of those four seasons. The streak began with its very first race and ended only when the category itself ended.
For fans who know the R32 Skyline GT-R as a road car, the racing version tells a different story. In Japan’s Group A championship, it simply never lost.
Here is how the streak started, what the race car carried under its skin and how the run finished at Fuji in October 1993.
The first Group A R32 GT-R win, March 1990
The car debuted in March 1990 at the season opener of the All Japan Touring Car Championship. That race was the All Japan Touring Car 300 km at Nishi-Nippon Circuit, which is now called MINE Circuit. According to Nissan’s heritage history, Kazuyoshi Hoshino and Toshio Suzuki won it in the Calsonic car.
Several other teams raced GT-Rs that day, too. Nissan names Masahiro Hasemi in the UNISIA JECS car, K. Takahashi in the Advan car and K. Tohira in the Zexel car. As a result, the GT-R’s toughest rivals were often other GT-Rs. Nissan’s own photo caption says fans got excited watching Skyline battle Skyline.
What was under the race car’s skin
Under the hood sat the RB26DETT, a straight-six with twin turbochargers. In evo’s 2013 track test of the Calsonic car, Richard Meaden wrote that power ranged from 550 to 650 bhp, depending on the year and the race. The Group A cars regularly revved to 8,500 rpm in race trim, he added.
Meanwhile, the chassis kept the road car’s clever hardware. The race car used all-wheel drive with an ATTESA E-TS torque controller, so a computer managed the split between the axles. It also kept HICAS four-wheel steering. Power went through a five-speed dog-engagement gearbox.
For reference, the car Meaden drove weighed 1,260 kg. Its wheels were 10 inches wide, two inches wider than the road car’s, and it stopped on big AP rotors with no ABS. By comparison, evo notes that a Group A Ford Sierra RS500 was lighter but made 500 to 550 bhp.
Four seasons, 29 starts, 29 wins
The Group A R32 GT-R won 29 races from 29 starts across four seasons, according to evo. Nissan’s own figure matches. A 2017 Nissan press release says the R32 “won an incredible 29 consecutive races in Japan.”
The Calsonic car became champion in the first and last of those four seasons, evo reports. Meanwhile, by 1993, sixteen R32s were racing against each other on the grid.
That grid depended on the road car, too. Evo points out that the race cars could run only as long as enough showroom examples were produced. In other words, the showroom car kept the race car on the grid.
Outside Japan, the car won as well. Evo notes that an R32 also won the 1991 Spa 24 Hours. However, the 29-race streak covers only the Japanese championship, and that is the record Nissan itself counts.
The last Group A race, Fuji, October 1993
Finally, the streak reached the final round of 1993 at Fuji. It was the last race ever run for those Group A cars in Japan, and the GT-R won that one, too. Nissan describes that win as a glorious end to the car’s Group A chapter.
Even so, the crowd was large for a series at the end of its life. Evo says the race still drew 94,500 fans. After that, the category closed. From 1994, Nissan notes, the Super Touring Car class replaced Group A in Japan.
How fans remember the Calsonic car
The Calsonic car is the one many fans picture first. Hoshino drove it, and it won the title at both ends of the run. In 2017, Nissan brought the Group A cars back to Fuji Speedway for its NISMO Festival.
In its press release for that event, Nissan added that fans had recently voted the R32 the greatest Nissan or NISMO race car of all time. That vote ran in the #NISMOtop20 poll on Twitter.
In the end, the numbers explain the vote. Hoshino and Suzuki won the first race in March 1990. Then the R32 kept winning until the final Group A race at Fuji in October 1993, for a total of 29 wins from 29 starts.
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