Story behind
The Gods May Have Aged, But the Legends Never Flame Out
In 1989 Japanese manufacturers agreed among themselves to cap advertised power at 280 PS. It was a gentlemen's agreement, and it was observed in roughly the way gentlemen's agreements usually are. What followed was a decade in which six companies each tried to build the definitive performance car while officially claiming the same output as everyone else.
Toyota built the Supra around an iron-block twin-turbo straight-six so overbuilt that the tuning industry is still exploiting it thirty years later. Nissan built the R34 GT-R with all-wheel drive and enough electronics to embarrass supercars. Honda built the NSX in aluminium, took it to Nürburgring, and had Ayrton Senna tell them the chassis was not stiff enough — so they stiffened it. Mazda kept the rotary alive in the FD RX-7 when every rational argument said stop. Subaru built the 22B for its rally homologation and made 400 of them. Mitsubishi built the Evo IX as the last one before the electronics took over.
None of them look alike. None of them solved the problem the same way. That is exactly the point of putting all six in one frame.
