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A phenomenon in its own right since its debut in 2007, the GTR – given its celebrated 911-besting performances around the Nurburgring – has rapidly become the speedster’s weapon of choice in the Middle East. Given the level of competition on offer – the 911, the Corvette Z06 and Shelby GT 500 to name but a few – this may seem a bit one-sided. To Sharif though, this makes perfect sense.
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“The GTR is a blunt force instrument. It’s a stealth fighter. It’s not the sexiest looking thing but it gets the job done, and that’s what attracts me to the Nissan: it’s a good dual-purpose car. It has a beautiful interior, there’s a sizeable boot, and you can cruise around with good fuel consumption. Most of the cars that run the quarter mile in 8s/9s you don’t want to be anywhere near off the track! These though you can easily spend $150,000-$200,000 building them and still use them comfortably on the road. You can’t say that about every car.”
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Which brings us to the sea of GTRs standing next to us. Every one of them is in to have the horsepower increased and the performance improved. And while this idea is hardly new to Sharif, he does admit that ‘performance’ can differ dramatically between the USA and the Middle East.
“In the US, about 65%/70% of our customers want us to set the cars up for fast, dual purpose track-use. So, ideally they want a car that makes 6/7/800hp but which is also very balanced in the turns. In the Middle East, they’re only interested in straight-line speed and how the car looks: a lot of bodykits and aggressive treatments on wheels and tyres as well as 1000hp. It seems like everyone here wants a 1000hp GTR, whereas in the US those customers are getting fewer and further between.”
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Straight-line speed is definitely the order of the day with the two examples he’s working on. Both have some final time on the dyno to complete before their runs at the Yas Marina Drag strip in Abu Dhabi. Right now though, a trailing lifeline from each engine is connected to two laptops, the screens of which display various line charts, numbers and projected figures that mean nothing to me but towards which Sharif throws a casual glance every other minute, a raised eyebrow or “huh” sometimes breaking forth. In a workshop of performance equipment, these two are the serious arsenal.
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“These are the two! This darker grey GTR belongs to Ali, and the other belongs to a customer who is from India which is where it will end up when it’s finished. This car is JDM spec, a 2008 model, and was one of the first GTRs to come off the assembly line. The right-hand drive does attract a bit of attention over here, but it’s just finished having ride height adjustment and we’re sticking a turbo kit in it. This should be good for 1200hp.
