People who are successful in life always try to outdo themselves in their field of expertise. But sometimes, when you raise the bar too high, that can prove to be a bit difficult. Luckily for us, it seems like the owner of Liberty Walk in Japan, mister Wataru Kato, still has some aces up his sleeves. We've seen so many amazing creations coming out of his shop for the past decade or so, but still, he manages to come up with something special every year.
A few years ago he shocked the world by putting Daigo Saito, who had just won everything there was to win in Formula Drift in the United States, in a drift-spec Lamborghini Aventador. At that point, seeing a supercar built for drifting was not an everyday occurrence, and it still isn't even to this day.
But Kato-san wasn't going to stop there. Over the years Liberty Walk has built all sorts of vehicles, ranging from old-school Japanese sports cars to modern-day Italian exotics. They've even built a Mitsuoka Orochi for Christ's sake!
And it looked like Kato-san wanted to be involved in the local Japanese drift scene as well. He sent a shockwave across the drift world when he announced that Hibino Tetsuya would be driving a Nissan Silvia S15 in Formula Drift Japan.
That may not sound like much until you realize that they used a Mazda 4-rotor engine for that car! By the end of the 2021 season, Hibino-san ranked 3rd overall in the FD Japan series, and the Super-Silhouette S15 went on to become a Hot Wheels diecast as well!
Photo: Liberty Walk/Wataru Kato
I had the honor of meeting Hibino-san a few years ago, and he's genuinely one of the most passionate pro drifters of all time. And by the looks of it, his commitment to the sport and his skills have brought him to a point where he's about to get an even more spectacular upgrade.
Although Kato-san has been teasing the idea for a while, and the car has been featured at the Tokyo Auto Salon earlier this year, today we get to hear it firing up for the first time. Behold, the world's first 4-rotor Nissan R35 GT-R!
Now, I've seen Nissan cars powered by rotary engines before, but can you remember the last time you saw a pistonless GT-R? People have been swapping all sorts of engines into this chassis over the past decade, but this might just be the most unexpected setup of all.
The car has the unmistakable Liberty Walk look to it, with impressive attention to detail all around. Of course, that's what anyone would expect when paying as much as $50,000 for a body kit! With that in mind, this car was probably built on a budget of at least $250,000 if not more.
The livery on this new car is reminiscent of the one the team's S15 used last year, and it will be making its debut in just a few days. So, if you happen to be in Japan the following week, you might just get a glimpse of it at the 1st Formula Drift event of the year in the country, at Suzuka Racing Circuit.
The things Dragos enjoys the most in life are, in no particular order: cars, motorcycles, diecast cars, and drifting. He's seen (and driven) many vehicles since he started his writing career back in 2009, but his garage currently houses a 1991 Mazda RX-7 FC3S Turbo II and a 1999 Suzuki SV650-S. Full profile
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