MCR Tuning Shop Nissan Skyline R34 GTR - Matchless Crowd Racing

Just a few tuners are thrown around with regularity when the topic of the fastest cars on Wangan, the site of epic highway battles around Tokyo harbor, is discussed. Bozz, for example, is said to have the fastest EVO, Top Secret the fastest Supra. MCR, or Matchless Crowd Racing, has the fastest Skyline.

A reputation for producing the most potent street-driven Skyline GT-Rs in all of Japan is no small feat, and a visit to MCR's facility showed us it's well earned.

Like many famous shops in Japan, the physical plant, slotted between factories and farmers' plots, is understated. Better to keep the riceboys away. As Nissan birthed progressive generations of Skylines, MCR moved its focus to the newest model, culminating in the latest, but hopefully not last, R34 GT-R. It's hard to get more specialized than tuning one generation of one model of one car.

While some MCR-built GT-Rs end up at the track for time trial and Time Attack events, most are built for well-heeled customers who want one of the fastest street machines money can buy, period. It's obvious from the subtle, but effective, high-speed aero enhancements, double-adjustable, remote-reservoir coil-overs, fluid management strategies, and massive braking systems employed on the GT-Rs that the cars spend lengths of time at highly illegal speeds.

Although many trick racecar fabrication techniques are employed, the GT-Rs remain street cars with liveable interiors. Of course, what constitutes a liveable ride is in the butt and back of the owners.

There are two strategies for those with bottomless wallets when building their "ultimate" tuner car: Go to a tuner like HKS or Blitz and say "make it the fastest," which means its parts would be used almost exclusively, or go to an independent tuner and say "make it the fastest," which means the shop will use whatever parts are most appropriate. MCR provides the latter service. Pragmatism takes precedence over loyalty when you're assembling the craziest machines. You simply have to use what works best, and we saw predominantly products from Tein, HKS, and Trust/GReddy, among others.