GT-R versus GT-R: Drifter Rick Van Goethem meets the #MotulGTR

With a #MotulGTR at our disposal, what’s better than to go find another Motul partnered Nissan GT-R? That is how we found ourselves in rural Hulst, the Netherlands, to meet Drift ace Rick Van Goethem at his workshop.

 

 

 

Rick Van Goethem has a small workshop where he repairs and services cars, and where his clients can admire a collection of Nissan GT-Rs: his R33 drift car and various other R33s, which he uses for spare parts. The very trained eye will also find an extremely rare Nissan R34 GT-T, the rear-wheel driven counterpart to the infamous R34 GT-R.

 

The R33 GT-R sitting in the front is Rick’s drift machine that just returned from Norway, where he attended the Gatbill festival, a huge drift festival in Norway which attracts the best drifters from around the world. The Nissan R33 GT-R Rick is drifting is no standard GT-R. Having been fully prepared for competing, it has only a few parts that were carried over from the road car. Like the R34 mentioned previously, the drift car is also a GT-T variant, as it needs to be rear-wheel driven but has been updated with a GT-R body kit. In the front of the car is a 2.7l in-line-six engine (kept spinning nicely with Motul 300v) with a sizeable turbo attached to it, producing 600 bhp to the rear wheels via a five speed manual gearbox. Combined with a specific suspension setup and sticky semi-slick tires, it’s perfectly geared for drifting.

 

 

 

This is in stark contrast to our #MotulGTR, a 2018-specification Nissan R35 GT-R track edition which is specifically designed to lap a race track as fast and straight as possible without drifting. The engine (also lubricated with Motul from the factory) in the #Motul GT-R is a 3.8l V6 with two turbos putting 570 bhp and 637 on the road. Via a six-speed dual clutch gearbox, the power is delivered to all four wheels instead of just the rear, resulting in less sideways action on the track compared with Rick’s GT-R.

 

To celebrate these cars being together, we could think of nothing else as having Rick drift around in our #MotulGTR.

 

 

 

#MotulGTR R35 Track edition

 

Engine: 3.8l VR38 Twinturbo V6

Gearbox: Six speed dual clutch

Power: 570 BHP

Torque: 637 BHP

Drive: all-wheel drive

0-100km/h: 2.8sec

top speed: 315km/h

tires: Dunlop SP Sport Maxx

 

#DriftGTR R33 Drift edition

 

Engine: RB25DET with RB26 crank/rods/pistons

Gearbox: 5 speed Nissan upgraded input shaft and close ratio kit

Power: 600 bhp

Torque: 640 Nm

Drive: rear wheel

0-100kp/h: Not measured

top speed: Not measured