EVENT: S30.world Japan tour pt. 4 – NISMO / Dino DC / Watanabe / Protec

Day 6: NISMO / Autech Omori factory Presentation and meeting, Dino DC, RS-Watanabe / Protec
This day was definitely one of the most memorable for me personally. Packed with so much goodness and some unexpected plot twists which just made it all better. But let’s start in the morning. We took the public transport from Yokohama direction Oppama.

I think this location will ring a bell with some of you. After a 20minute walk from the train station, we recognized the world famous NISMO logo on top of their Oppama Headquarters.

NMC Is the merged NISMO / Autech operation for Nissan Motorsports (NISMO) and customizing (Autech). They basically do everything from equipping police cars with specific features and offering hop-up parts for your new Nissan car (Autech) to building new street and race cars and maintaining old race cars (NISMO).

After we wandered around the premises, checked out the lineup of employee cars and NISMO racing academy cars in front of the factory, we got asked to step inside and got greeted by some of the NISMO staff and Managers.

We were then directed into a meeting room. The meeting had two main purposes. S30.world was there to discuss some business opportunities with NISMO, but we were also given early access to check out the new NISMO DOHC crossflow Nissan L6 head, which they had just announced publicly the day before. It’s still in prototype stage so we were not allowed to take photos.

The head of Motorsports vehicle development dept. (In charge of this head) and head of Vehicle development dept. Group No 2. of NISMO would explain the very details of the DOHC head and answer all of our critical questions. Especially WHY they made this product with all the other heads available recently and the very limited market. It turns out it’s mainly a 40 years anniversary celebration product and to showcase their capabilities, etc.
We got shown all the individual parts with some specification and details which are not publicly available, which was very interesting.
If you want to know more, here’s the information available from the NISMO website.

Now, I’ve seen the head being advertised all over the place, BUT. There’s a thing:
– Only available to selected S30 / L6 specialists – not determined yet. So nobody knows who will get it.
– First casting batch is limited to 300 pieces
– A lot of additional work required
– A lot of additional parts not included in the kit, although they give some suggestions.
– Requires modification of the transmission
– Bore 89mm means you need to find a good block to allow this size, etc.
Upside: tested for LHD and RHD cars. Currently for S30 / S31 only, but will also work with other cars, if modified accordingly.

It’s a great product, nonetheless, but also a very niche product, if you ask me.

During the meeting, Dino Dalle Carbonare of speedhunters / Youtube / Auto Otaku blog fame joined us, to listen with us and ask questions. Dino recently made videos of the S30.one project and S30.world and was therefore already familiar with some of the team. After the meeting, we got guided to the other end of the building, where the public showroom is, with a changing exhibition of NISMO motorsports cars and from the Nissan Zama collection. On the way there, we could see Iconic CALSONIC skylines race cars and of course a wide range of Nissan Skylines in for maintenance and modifications, but were again not allowed to take photos.

In the public showroom, the famous “23” GTS-II group racing car was the centerpiece of the exhibition. At least to us Z-nerds. It’s probably not exactly what you think it is. but I’ll dedicate a special story to this specific car in the future.

Check out the gallery for some details of that car and its LY240 engine:

They also had plenty of other cool stuff on site, like this NISMO RZ34 GT-4 (concept?):

Again, check out the gallery for all the racing cars, Wind-tunnel scale models, and other cool stuff from the showroom:

The staff was happy to show us around, explain everything, and open hoods for us, which is probably not something you can expect as a regular visitor.

After we had drooled over all things and taken thousands of photos, we were guided back again to the meeting room, where an executive of Nissan global took the opportunity of such an “international experts group” to ask us about expansion ideas for NISMO and the general perception of the brand around the world. We had a nice discussion, and it was cool to give our view on things. We also got some insights into some plans for NISMO and the current situation at Nissan, but obviously this was again confidential.

Once our meeting was over, the plan was to go to another location by public transport, and Dino would join us. He had two free seats in his famous Bayside blue R34 GT-R Skyline, so I didn’t turn down the offer to join him and Gav in the Car. The modified RB26DETT has a great sound and packs a sarious punch. Dino didn’t hold back either on the streets of the Tokyo suburbs, and it was a really fun and memorable ride. Thanks for that.

Our Next stop was at the world-famous wheel manufacturer RS-Watanabe. This place is basically the backyard of their home, where they finalize the wheels before shipping, while the forging is happening in another location. We were a bit early, and until the remaining group arrived by train, we had a quick chat with Watanabe-San junior (the current chief of operation), his lovely wife and his Mother, who was excited to have found a snake in her garden 🙂 What a lovely family.

Once the group was complete again, we were given a tour through the workshops by Watanabe-san himself and his team, where they explained how the wheels were made and all the details were shown to us:

Once again, very interesting insights. Watanabe-san is a really cool guy and was happy to answer our questions. After the tour, we were guided to the showroom and some had a quick business-meeting, while the other studied the different wheel designs and random stuff around the place. Did you know that Watanabe at one point made golf clubs under their “Falcon” brand?

For our next and final stop for the day, Watanabe-san joined us on a 15-minute walk to Protec: They’re famous for S20 engines, but specialize in all kind of vintage Nissan Skyline and Fairlady cars, and especially the S20 and L-series engines. We knew we were in the right spot when we were greeted by a real deal C110 Kenmary Skyline GT-R and an C210 Skyline “Japan” in the backyard of a typical japanese neighbourhood.

We didn’t really have any specific reason to be there, other than just saying hi. But they politely allowed us to have a look around and check out their workshop.

It’s one of these typical Japanese specialist workshops, with all rare stuff lying around everywhere and workers preparing engines just on the shop floor. It has so much character and knowledge, and you just have to love these places with so much understatement. Just look at the gallery below and see how many rare cars and parts you can discover:

After we thought we’d disturbed them for long enough, he showed us the Kenmary GT-R skyline and gave each of us a catalogue, before we waved goodbye and thanked them for their time.

Once we were finished with looking at the gorgeous collection of beautiful cars, we took the train back to Yokohama. On the Train, Jos discovered an advertising with the S30 on it.

On the way from the train station to the Hotel, some of us stopped again at the Nissan Gallery HQ store to buy some random memorabilia.

Before we finally went for a nice Japanese Pizza dinner, with some interesting but delicious interpretation of the Italian classic.

What a crazy day – But we still have one more day to cover, and this one definitely had PLENTY of incredible cars to look at. So stay tuned for the last two parts of the story, soon!