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Toyota knew how to throw endless dollars at a race engine

6 June, 2017


 

The ‘90s saw Toyota produce some of their finest engine work — it spawned the 1JZ and 2JZ, beams 3S-GE, 20-valve 4A-GE silver- and black-top … the list can go on forever.

But we’re willing to bet a decent chunk of money (the $3.20 of change sitting in my desk drawer) one that has yet to blip up on your radar is the R36V.

But that’s just a byproduct of  racing engines from Japanese carmakers not getting the same kind of love as their road-going counterparts, and hey, that makes perfect sense – Johnny Tuner may 4A-GE swap their Corolla, or cram a 1J into their Cressida, but they’re highly unlikely to get their hands on a near-on 1000hp powerplant like that of the R36V.

The R36V was based on a previously built 3.2-litre version (R32V) that was introduced by Toyota in 1990 for the Le Mans 24-hour race, World Sports Prototype Car Championship (WSPC) and the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship (JSPC). While Toyota had previously been campaigning a 3S-GE, restrictions on race fuels meant Toyota wanted to look towards larger displacement hearts.

This spawned the development of the R32V, and although it saw victory in 1988 and 1989, Toyota deemed it impossible to win a JSPC championship with. Subsequently, a revised 3.6-litre version known as the R36V was introduced as its replacement in 1990. Chuffed up by a CT 26RT twin-scroll snail and pumping out upwards of 800ps, it was crammed into the 92C-V prototype car. Three cars were entered into the 1992 All Japan Sports Prototype Championship and managed four top-three finishes out of the six races, but did not manage a win —  eventually allowing Nissan to win the championship title for the third consecutive year.

With the demise of Group C 1994, Toyota updated two cars and ran them as the Toyota 94C-V under the new 24 Hour of Le Mans  LMP1 class. Achieving a one-two finish for their class, car #1 finished second overall — almost winning Le Mans.

While it raced at other events throughout its lifespan, its last outing of note was the
Suzuka 1000km in 1994 where it was retired due to mechanical issues.

The R36V was one of those mind-bending never-to-be-repeated projects during Japan’s bubble years, where automakers threw insane amounts of money at race engines and they chassis the adorned. It was truly a time of glory-seeking race cars that we hadn’t seen before, and never really have since.

 

Janspeed recreates the Jaguar sports car

29 September, 2026

Thankfully, a few of these cars made it to New Zealand, the odd one being imported from the UK over the years. However, the 1988 British Racing Green example owned by Bill Slater in Upper Hutt was originally sold as a standard car but converted using the full Janspeed kit by the first owner within a couple of years of buying it.
Bill has owned a few other Jaguars. In fact, after he sold his Jaguar XJ12 in 2018, he found himself pining for another and, when the XJ-S came up for sale, he could not resist it. Having just sold the V12, he was not expecting much from the six-cylinder car other than more reliability and it being cheaper to keep on the road. Naturally, he had heard of the influence Janspeed had on the marque, but it was not until he took the car for a test drive that he became aware of just how superior it was to the car he had just sold. The price of a second-hand Janspeed XJ-S and that of a standard 3.6 XJ-S is quite comparable, making the Janspeed version an incredible bargain, even more so in comparison with other performance classic cars — or even modern cars, for that matter — which cost far more bucks for the bang.

The writing on the wall

25 September, 2026

Deven, a digital content producer in his 20s, says it was the rear-drive Nissan and Toyota drift cars that fired his imagination in his not-so-distant youth and soon had him wanting one of his own. However, like most of us, he had to start in something less glamorous – in his case, a 1997 Mitsubishi Galant. After that, he bought a four-litre V8 1991 Toyota Soarer, a big change from the Mitsubishi.
“It was my daily driver, and it wasn’t that bad to run back when petrol was affordable,” he says.
When he got fed up with filling it up, Deven bought a 1989 Ford Laser sedan, a 1.3-litre five-speed manual, to be his daily driver. It’s in very good condition, bought from a careful older driver, and he still runs it – although he will occasionally also drive the latest in a series of Nissan Laurel sedans. His current one, from 1993, has done the lowest number of kilometres yet, at 183,000. It has the single-cam version of the engine in his Skyline.
“I’ve had four different versions of that car. It was just a car I always liked. It’s really comfortable, quite luxurious. I bought it from a 90-year-old in Hamilton. It’s in mint condition, and everything is standard.”