You don't see many R35 GTR's around.
Well let's be more precise here, you don't see many R35 GTR's in this flavour... Let's take a look at Dale Johnson's brilliant creation.
I first met Dale one cold wet Friday a couple years ago. We had arranged to meet up to test fit a set of wheels on his previous GTR R35 just before Ultimate Dubs 2013. That car had an unfortunate accident and ended up written off. Talk about shit luck.
After that one “went” away, Dale replaced it with a E61 M5 for a short while. But the urge for another GTR was strong. The M5 was soon swapped out for this car you see featured here. The car started out as a completely standard black example which to Dale meant a perfect R35 for some tweaking...
The first thing that was added, well, removed, was the Y-Pipe (De-cat) to give the already awesome sounding VR38DETT an even throatier sound out from it's five inch exhaust tips.
Having his previous GTR wrapped in bright orange, Dale is no stranger to bright colours. Black was a little too bland for Dale so he decided another wrap was the order of the day. This time a 3M Matte metallic blue wrap was chosen. The wrap looks so good in any light, but really does come alive in the glorious sunshine.
Once the GTR was sounding better, and looking a lot more vibrant with the 3M wrap, Dale's ride height was next on the agenda. One thing you might not know is that Dale is the official UK distributor for D2, so it was a simple choice in him choosing one of D2's "Gold" self levelling kits for his GTR.
This is a neat bit of kit that as the title suggests has a self levelling feature, which always keeps the ride height perfect no matter on how much weights in the car. Which is handy if you have the perfect ride height set, and don't want to be messing around whenever you add weight to the car. It also has a nice little remote fob to raise and lower the car while it's parked and locked up, much fun to be had.
With the GTR now sat aggressively low it was wheel time. Now the R35 can take some serious wheels. So Dale ordered a set of D2 Forged OS-02 wheels in 20" X 9.5" ET32 up front, and some girthy 20" X 12" ET-2 out back. This car could quite easily run 13" wide wheels out back with no arch work and still tuck! Crazy.
Dale already has plans for a new set of wheels which we can't wait to see, hopefully pushing the rears to 13" wide.
The GTR has such presence even in standard form, with a few styling tweaks and brutal performance, Dale really has created one serious automotive beast.
We'll see you on PistonHeads classified...Oh wait, we still can't afford one either :-(
Owner: Dale Johnson
Words and Photography: Tony Adams.
