Is it a snow plow? Did it just crash into the back of two other cars stacked on top of one another? No, it's a specially prepared hillclimb racer that makes so much power that every bit of downforce counts. Meet Franco Scribante Racing's ridiculous-looking Nissan GT-R, featuring three wings bigger than the one on your Civic.
Spoilers get a bit of a bad rap on road cars these days. Aston Martin, for example, has invented a complex air blade system that channels air through the car's body and fires it upwards, just because it thought a spoiler would look a bit naff. They're not wrong, really, because you need to go quite fast to generate enough downforce to make them effective. So on road cars they're either a lairy fashion statement, or an indication that the driver hangs it all out big time on the road.
They're mighty handy on race cars, though, that actually go fast enough to make them effective and genuinely need the extra grip. And both of these apply to our subject today. Franco Scribante Racing is preparing to go run the Jaguar Simola Hillclimb that begins in a couple of days in South Africa, and the team has built an eye-popping monster of a car with its eyes on the prize.
Top Gear is reporting that this Nissan GT-R has been roided-out with a little over a thousand more horsepower than it started with, for a total around 1,600 hp. So it should boogie a little bit. But in the name of downforce, the team has slapped on a truly ludicrous set of wings.
At the front, there's a huge, ground-hugging splitter. Stacked above it, another wing that'd look too big on the back of a Le Mans car. At the rear, a colossal double-decker box of a thing. All three are carbon, with giant side plates, and the rear aspect is rounded out by a Darth Vaderesque set of diffusers that put even the hilarious Alieno Arcanum to shame.
We're no aerodynamicists, but we'd estimate that this thing could drive upside down at walking pace in a light breeze. Enjoy a bunch of pics in the gallery.
Source: Franco Scribante Racing via Top Gear