Marv’s Garage: "JGTC" is Japanese for "sick race cars"

Kicking off in 1993 the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship is better known by the acronym JGTC, though the series was offically renamed Super GT in 2005. It was started by the Japan Automobile Federation to replace the Group C sports cars and Group A touring car championships, with power limits for the 2 classes (GT300 & GT500) as well as active weight penalties for race winners to ensure parity.

Loosely based around production road cars it quickly became Japan's premiere tin-top racing series, influencing tuner trends, racing simulators, and legions of race fans for years. I'm going to look at the JGTC era here, focusing today on the top dog GT500 class.

Limited to 500hp teams came up with interesting combos to improve weight distribution and power delivery. Despite being able to make 500hp on its ear, Supras binned their 2JZGTEs in favour of 3SGTE turbo 4-bangers or NA 3UZ V8s!

While exotics like the McLaren F1 GTR, Ferrari F40, Porsche GT2, Dodge Viper and Lamborghini Diablo all had a crack at JGTC the real heroes of GT500 were the Nissan Skyline GT-R, Toyota's JZA80 Supra and the Honda NSX.

If you don't understand why these cars had such an impact on the 1990s "JDM" tuning scene then your eyes must be painted on. While they retained a production silhouette all GT500 cars were hand-made pure race machines, light in mass and capable of outrunning any other touring or GT cars in the world.

The drivers were the cream of the crop, not just from Japan either. Aussie 500cc World Champion Wayne Gardner and V8 Supercar Champion James Courtney both did stints in Japan, among many successful internationals. Though JGTC races weren't broadcast globally, and there was no coverage in automotive press, including the top JGTC race cars in the hyper-popular Gran Turismo series helped seed the series' popularity around the world.

JGTC also introduced the GT300 class. As with the big-bangers in GT500, the GT300 class featured cars tuned to a maximum output of 300hp. They retained all the awesome fabrication and engineering of the big dawgs but were smaller cars. While Skylines ran in GT500, it was Silvias taking on GT300 and this meant there was plenty of titanic battles against Toyota Sprinters and MR2s, Subaru Imprezas, Mazda RX-7s and more.

It was like watching Gran Turismo in real life, with the category's parity rules keeping everyone on a similar footing and promoting tight racing. It is definitely worth looking up old JGTC races on YouTube if you're into ridiculously fast touring cars or Japanese tuner cars.