SB Motorsport building a 1,000-hp GT-R-powered Navara frankentruck

It seems fair to say that every garage, shop, tuner and wrencher likely has a crazy idea for an ultimate build. But those ideas often cannot be put into motion and realized without time. For United Kingdom-based SB Motorsport (SBM), spare time finally opened up during the lockdowns that have resulted from responses to the coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic. With some breathing room, the busy tuner finally announced a project it has been envisioning for a while: a 1,000-horsepower Nissan Navara with the engine and suspension from a GT-R. 

Via Autocar, SB Motorsport resides in Essex, U.K., and is most known for its Nissan GT-R drift car, seen in the video below. Now the company is transferring that car’s spirit to a Navara pickup truck. SBM will remove the Navara’s diesel powertrain and replace it with a VR38 twin-turbocharged V6 from a GT-R. 

“This project has always been on the cards for SB Motorsport, ever since our initial GT-R project,” SBM founder and GT-R pilot Stephen “Baggsy” Biagioni said in a press release. “With racing currently on hold, this was the break we needed to re-visit the idea and bring it to fruition. 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. The Navara-R, as we have already dubbed it, will challenge our in-house know-how. With this build, the aim is to keep the Navara road-legal, all the mod-cons of the vehicle, rather than creating a race car chassis with minimal extras.” 

SBM says it will try to maintain much of the Navara’s stock interior, but the rest will be significantly different. In addition to the engine swap, the Navara-R chassis will use the GT-R‘s suspension to handle the 1,000-horsepower goal. 

The initial renderings show a transformation of the Navara’s exterior. The truck has been lowered, and a front splitter, side skirts, and a rear diffuser give it a more streamlined and aerodynamic profile. It also has a rear spoiler for added downforce and a roll cage for added safety. A side-outlet exhaust is seen behind the rear passenger-side wheel well, and the rear window appears to be punched out. Primed for burnouts and drifting, the Navara will have six-spoke aftermarket wheels and fat Accelera tires.

That’s all the info SBM has released thus far, but the shop is planning on taking its audience along for the ride throughout the project’s journey. Every second Wednesday of the month, starting on June 10, 2020, SBM will post build videos on its YouTube channel. Visit SB Motorsport for more information.

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