About this car

The Garage Saurus Elgrand The eight-seat Nissan that became the world’s quickest MPV... Somebody once took an eight-seat Nissan Elgrand to one of Japan’s most respected performance tuners and asked them to build a drag car. There was just one condition: It still had to look pretty much standard. The result is the car you see here — our own show-winning E51 Nissan Elgrand, imported into the UK in 2018 and part of our collection ever since. And at the time it was built, this was the quickest MPV in the world. It started with 240 horsepower and a slightly unhinged idea The E51 wasn’t exactly slow to begin with. In standard form its 3.5-litre VQ35DE V6 produced around 240PS. But its original Japanese owner wanted something nobody else had. So the Elgrand was sent to Garage Saurus, the legendary Japanese tuning house better known for building brutally fast GT-Rs than modifying eight-seat people carriers. Mr Hayashi-san and his team took on the challenge. The brief wasn’t simply to make the Elgrand fast. It was to create a genuinely competitive drag machine while retaining the appearance and character of an ordinary road-going Elgrand. That meant the transformation had to happen underneath. Out came the DE The original VQ35DE was removed and replaced with a brand-new VQ35HR crate engine, as used in the later Nissan Skyline 350GT. But installing a 300+ horsepower HR was only the starting point. The engine was stripped and extensively built by Garage Saurus. Forged internals were used, the block was over-bored for larger pistons to increase capacity, and uprated cams were combined with a high-RPM valvetrain. In naturally aspirated form, the completed engine was already producing around 360bhp. Then they added boost. 510bhp. At the rear wheels. Garage Saurus installed an HKS GT twin-supercharger system, running approximately 1 bar of boost, together with the supporting cooling, fuelling and ignition modifications required to make it work. R35 coil packs were fitted along with extensive additional oil cooling and intercooling, while a GReddy blow-off valve completed the forced-induction system. The result was approximately: 510bhp at the rear wheels. In an Elgrand. And apparently that still wasn’t ridiculous enough. So they gave it nitrous A huge 2.5-litre NOS system was installed, providing another substantial hit of power when required. With the nitrous activated, maximum output increased to approximately: 660bhp at the rear wheels. Not at the crank. At the wheels. In an eight-seat, two-tonne Nissan MPV. But this wasn’t just a dyno build This is an important part of the Elgrand’s history. Garage Saurus didn’t build it simply to produce an impressive number on a dyno sheet. It was built and set up to drag race. The transmission was replaced and upgraded using a gearbox derived from the appropriate GT-R drivetrain architecture, retaining the conventional transmission layout rather than the later GT-R rear-transaxle arrangement. Garage Saurus then extensively strengthened the drivetrain to deal with the enormous increase in power and torque. The suspension was similarly developed for its intended purpose. Coilovers, custom underbody bracing, anti-roll hardware and strut reinforcement were used to control a vehicle that Nissan had certainly never envisaged launching down a drag strip with more than 600 horsepower. And it worked. The finished Elgrand raced in Japan and, at the time it was built, became the quickest MPV in the world. Think about that for a moment. Garage Saurus had taken what started life as a luxurious Japanese family bus and turned it into a record-setting drag machine — while leaving enough of the original Elgrand intact that you could still put eight people in it. Then they had to make it stop… Making a two-tonne MPV accelerate like this created another fairly obvious problem. Brakes. Garage Saurus developed an enormous six-piston front braking system, based around competition-style hardware with two-piece rotors and race pads. At the rear sits a corresponding four-piston setup, again using performance pads. Lightweight 19-inch RAYS racing wheels and performance tyres completed the package. A custom six-branch tubular manifold was fabricated to maximise torque and gas flow, feeding into a fully custom, decatted 3-inch stainless-steel exhaust system. This wasn’t an Elgrand with a supercharger bolted onto it. It was a properly engineered car. And that’s what makes the outside so funny Despite everything Garage Saurus had done underneath, the original owner’s instruction remained: Don’t make it look ridiculous. So they didn’t. The body remained remarkably close to standard. The most obvious alteration is the custom Nismo-style front bumper, which wasn’t fitted simply for appearance — the additional openings were needed to feed air to the various coolers required by the engine behind it. Otherwise, unless you know what you’re looking at, it’s still an E51 Elgrand. The interior follows the same philosophy. It retains the Elgrand’s original practicality and seating, with an aftermarket steering wheel and a fairly spectacular collection of additional gauges being the main clues that something isn’t quite normal. Then you start it. And the illusion rather falls apart. A £50,000 Japanese build We’re told the original owner invested approximately £50,000 into creating the car. After its competition use, he retained the Elgrand for several years before eventually deciding to sell it. That’s when it appeared at USS Tokyo. We saw it. We wanted it. And somehow, we won it. We thought that was the dramatic part of the story. It wasn’t. The earthquake While the Elgrand was in Japan awaiting shipment to the UK, an earthquake struck. We were subsequently told that the storage/port area had been affected and numerous vehicles had suffered damage. For a car like this, that’s particularly horrible news. You can’t simply go out and buy another one. For around a week, we struggled to get a definitive answer about what had happened to it. Then the call came. The Elgrand was completely safe. Its delivery driver had realised the danger around the port and, rather than leaving the vehicle there, had taken it back to his own home. His area escaped the damage. Thanks to one man’s quick thinking — and his honesty — an irreplaceable piece of Japanese tuning history survived unharmed. We were incredibly grateful and made sure the driver was rewarded for what he’d done. Then it came to us The Elgrand finally arrived in the UK in 2018, and we’ve owned it ever since. It has been shown, displayed and used as an incredible promotional vehicle, but has spent the overwhelming majority of its UK life safely inside our showroom. We’ve continued to service and maintain it regularly despite the very limited mileage it covers. And now, after years in our ownership, we’ve decided it’s time. We’re not really selling an old Nissan Elgrand. We’re passing on the custodianship of a completely unique Japanese build. A Garage Saurus-built, forged and over-bored VQ35HR. Twin-supercharged. Nitrous. Approximately 510bhp at the rear wheels on boost. Approximately 660bhp at the rear wheels with nitrous. Eight seats. Built for the drag strip. And, in its day, the quickest MPV in the world. There cannot be many vehicles anywhere with a story quite like this one. The Garage Saurus Elgrand is now available for sale.