Nissan's then Chief of Operations, Hanawa, always had a special interest in the legendary French career. That's why he decided that Le Mans was the ideal setting to showcase the full potential of Nissan's technological developments.
But in order to be able to take the car to the slopes, the regulations require that a small number of equal copies be manufactured for sale to the public. Nissan started the production of the street car and then prepared some units for the competition. While most companies face the process in reverse order, the street car was so similar to competition that adapting one to another was not so complex.
The development of the body began with tests in a wind tunnel in England. The scale model studied served to define the shapes of the carbon fiber body. The full-scale model was subsequently evaluated and optimized at Nissan Technical Center in Atsugi, Japan.
The carbon fiber chassis reveals that it is a very special vehicle, too much for the streets... The suspensions of the R390 GT1 were the same for the street car and the racing car. Its configuration included deformable double parallelogram with shock absorbers and springs on all four wheels, plus stabilizer bars on front and rear.
The Nissan R390 GT1 is equipped with a 3.496 cm3 engine with two twin turbos that develops a power of 560 hp at 6,800 rpm. Its performance is excellent, achieving an acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.9 seconds and a top speed of 330 km/h.
For the best desirable performance, this sport is equipped with an acceleration management system that controls the game from rest. The R390 also has a traction control system that if it detects wheels skid, it immediately decides which cylinders to reduce fuel supply to efficient traction.
The brake system features 356 mm diameter ventilated discs and six-piston jaws plus ABS system. Another detail that reminds us that this car was born for the tracks is the Xtrac sequential gearbox with six gears to pass very fast.
The interior of the Nissan R390 is simple, basically it has the same instrument as any street sports car and leather covered sports seats.
In conclusion, it can be said that an out-of-the-box car collector would certainly pay the Million dollars you're worth a car as exotic and anthological as this Nissan R390 GT1.
In 1998 the official Nissan team returned to Le Mans presenting four cars. This time the campaign was much more successful. Japanese cars managed to occupy four positions in the top ten in the overall table.
The best-placed Nissan R390 GT1, driven by Kazuyoshi Hocino, Aguri Suzuki and Masahiko Kageyama, finished third behind the unbeatable Porsche 911 GT1. The other Nissan finished fifth, sixth and tenth.
Rear wheel drive
Power: 560 hp at 6,800 rpm
Top speed: 330 km/h
Length: 4.719 mm
Weight: 1.098 kg
Ventilated disc brakes Ø 356 mm
© Adrián Blanco 2006 — Prohibited the total or partial reproduction of text and/or images without explicit written consent of the author. —
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