ADAM LZ ADDS TO THE SAFARI-STYLE TREND WITH A CUSTOM NISSAN R32 GT-R SAFARI.
Creating off-road versions of regular street cars isn’t a new thing. Since the time there was a distinct difference between the two, owners have swapped and changed components to create weird and wonderful cars that can go places they were never intended to go. Sometimes it’s a full body swap, which is a bit of an easier project when adding a body over another car’s ladder-frame suspension, but sometimes a project will see a proper conversion take place by combining the good bits from both cars. The first thing like this that I ever saw was in a year I refuse to name back in Kempton Park when I was a kid. There was a chap in the neighbourhood who put the body of a Nissan 1400 Champ onto the underpinnings of a Suzuki SJ to create a lifted version of the half-tonner LDV that was capable of going wherever the driver wanted to go. There was also a chap who used to fit old-school Beetle bodies on short-wheelbase Land Rover ladder frames. These days there’s a renewed interest in streetcars that can play in the dirt thanks to Porsche creating the 911 Dakar based on a new 911. It was about time because for years classic Porsches have been given this treatment by fans around the world. With Lamborghini joining the fray with their lifted supercar in the form of the Huracán Sterrato, more people have an interest in these kinds of cars. When famous YouTubers join the party, it puts these cars even more into the spotlight and we think that 2024 will be littered with lifted car projects. One that will no doubt soon be seen more and more this year is Adam LZ’s Nissan R32 GT-R Safari. It’s brilliant!
Adam LZ and his nearly 4,000,000 subscribers will surely spread the word about these kinds of projects, especially when they’re done right like this. Well known for his love of JDM cars, LZ rebuilt an R32 GT-R into something more suited to proper hooning on gravel and sand roads. The main ingredient for one of these cars is an all-wheel drive system, and that makes the now classic R32 a great base. LZ chucked the original powerplant and retrofitted the best 6-banger for one of these cars, an RB26 - modified of course. The setup includes a Link ECU, a Radium Engineering fuel system, Deatschwerks injectors, a PWR Advanced Cooling Technology intercooler, a Platinum Racing Products trigger, head, drain and coil kit, an Artec Performance manifold, a Wiring Specialties harness, a Driver Motorsports catch-can and most importantly, a GTX3576 Gen 2 turbo. The whole caboodle pumps out a rather healthy and usable 500 hp to all four wheels, or two thanks to a selectable drive system. The R32 rides higher than stock with BC Racing long travel suspension, and other off-road components include decent JDM-style wheels that lock into the Nitto Nomad Grappler all-terrain tyres, a Nismo off-road roof rack with an array of spotlights and a custom Bell Raceworks bash bar. The end result is brilliant, and while the initial testing looked great, it will only get better as tuning and development continues. We’re lookin g forward to seeing more projects like this in 2024, and hopefully, our SXdrv big boss will also start up his Mk1 Audi TT Safari project…
Take a look at the YouTube video showing the first outing of the custom-built, one-off Nissan R32 GT-R Safari. With automakers creating cars like this, it was only a matter of time before we'd see workshop builds in the same vein. Using an R32 GT-R is a great idea, and by the looks of things it will be just as cool as what Lamborghini and Porsche have recently released, if not cooler. Hopefully, this will spur the SXdrv big boss on to put his Mk1 Audi TT safari-style project into motion: Taking my R32 GTR Off-Road | Adam LZ
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