Age is just a number in the case of Barry Bigwood, a 75-year-old petrolhead and car enthusiast who had a dream to reach 351 km/h in his 2012 local Nissan GT-R R35 project car. With an airstrip at his disposal and a familiar South African number plate mounted on his Japanese bullet, he managed to achieve his goal!
Barry reminisces in the YouTube video about how he first fell in love with cars when he first saw and heard a six-cylinder Porsche 911 drive past him over 50 years ago, which immediately peaked his interest and turned him into the petrolhead he is today.
To blend in with society Barry drives around in a sixth-generation Honda Civic, but the unsuspecting 75-year-old man equipped with a walking stick has a fully modified GT-R R35 casually parked in his garage. Barry has had the Japanese coupe for 9 years now. After just two years of owning the GT-R, he was unsatisfied with the standard DBA model he bought so he decided to send it off to be modified overseas. All the modifications took six months and he received his newly tweaked GT-R.
The local Nissan GT-R R35 is a power-packed supercar with all the performance you could ask for to smash 200 mph. The original 3,8-litre twin-turbocharged V6 engine has been stroked up to 4,1-litres and the exterior is unsuspecting of its 895 kW capabilities other than the two functional NACA ducts on the bonnet. Barry’s GT-R has been upgraded with con-rods, pistons, valve springs and an uprated crankshaft. The modified car uses a Flexi fuel system that allows it to run on a 50% ethanol fuel mixture, this increases the boost of the turbochargers and gives the car more power.
To satisfy his long-term dream, Barry decided to pack a small bag and took a road trip in the local Nissan GT-R to Upington International airport to find a long empty stretch of runway. Right before taking off on his momentous endeavour, Barry admitted that he was both nervous and anxious but excited at the same because he has never pushed the limits of the car before. He was not even familiar with the launch control system but he continued to scratch the goal off his bucket list. The modified GT-R R35 went from 0-100 in 7,23 seconds which isn’t particularly quick but that wasn’t the objective here. Barry continued with the loud pedal to floor and managed a top speed of 351 km/h on the runway according to telemetry.
Age didn’t stop Barry from achieving his dreams while other men his age would shirk the thought of the warp speeds achieved on that Upington airstrip!
