Beware: a company is building a 1,000bhp GT-R-engined Navara

A company called SB Motorsport has announced plans to modify a Nissan Navara using the engine from a Nissan GT-R. Which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Utilising the time freed up by UK motorsport’s current lockdown-induced hiatus, SB Motorsport boss and sideways enthusiast Steve Biagioni wants to ‘revisit’ the idea of building what he’s calling a ‘Navara-R’. Still feeling great that you’ve deployed your own lockdown time valiantly by cleaning up that errant cupboard?

This Navara-R - a TruckZilla - won’t be some space-age rocketship chassis with unobtanium internals and so forth: Biagioni wants to keep the Navara road-legal, and will therefore install Godzilla’s 3.8-litre twin-turbo up front, and presumably a strap to hold on very tight inside, while keeping the Navara's chassis and other bits. Mostly, anyway.

“The Nissan Navara will maintain as much of a factory finish interior as possible,” SB Motorsport said. “However with nearly 1,000bhp, the chassis will use all the GT-R suspension setup for superior handling to its forecourt counterparts."

Oh, did we forget to mention that this perfectly reasonable modification will be tuned up to 1,000bhp? Well, we have now. “This project has always been on the cards for SB Motorsport,” Biagioni added, “ever since our initial GT-R project.

“We have the best partners and they share our vision to create another great vehicle that will challenge the normalities of what’s possible. This is going to be an exciting mix of performance meets practicality.”

It’s not the first Navara to be fitted with a GT-R engine: Severn Valley Motorsport built an 800bhp Navara a few years back. And yes, you’re right – the same SVM that dropped a 3.8-litre V6 into a Qashqai.

Shall we play the infinitely amusing ‘What Unassuming Vehicle Can A GT-R Engine Be Stuffed Into Next’ game?