Upper management usually means bigger pay checks, bigger decisions, moving up a few floors to a corner office with a view, and stocking the wardrobe with rows of natty suits.
But when you’re vice president of the Mid Night Racing Team, suits and corner offices have little to no meaning. What really matters is what, and how you drive.
As a junior Mid Night club member coming up through the ranks, Nanaumi-san drove an A80 Toyota Supra capable of 330km/h. After 20 years of dedication to the team and many, many racing victories under his belt, he earned Mid Night’s vice president title.
Having pushed the limits of top speed racing, taken on an important role within the club, and with a few more candles sitting atop his birthday cake, Nanaumi-san decided it was time to find something a little more classy to drive. A car more suited to a gentleman in upper management.
The respectable car Nanaumi-san chose as a replacement for his spine-bending Supra? The Porsche 911 Turbo you see here. It may not be as wild as Nanaumi-san was himself back in the day, but the 964 is a very capable car. Even if it will only do 290km/h.
Nanaumi-san’s Porsche is making north of 400hp with plenty of torque from its turbocharged 3.3L flat six. The transaxle comes from a 964 Carrera Cup. Then there’s the sound. Whether it’s burbling down a city back street or running flat-out on the expressway, the custom exhaust system makes the boosted boxer sound like a mixture of NASCAR V8 and Aston Martin Vantage. ‘Aggressively refined’ is a good way to describe it.
Considering the Mid Night club’s notoriety for high speed racing, aero kits are a big part of any car wearing the iconic angled, silver ‘Mid Night Car Speciall’ sticker.
The bits you can see include an Auto Garage TBK front bumper and an RS 3.8 rear wing with a modified blade.
It’s what you can’t see though that makes more of a difference to a car built for high speed. The 964’s underside has a full downforce aero upgrade, entirely flat from front to back, which helps suck the Porsche onto the road. Overkill for an upper management executive cruiser? Well, it depends on how competitive you are with the rest of the team.
With the Mid Night club’s focus now solely on circuit racing, do the elder members still race on the road? No. But do they still head out into the night and drive together? Of course. Just because they’re not hitting 300km/h on public roads, doesn’t mean they can’t still enjoy some spirited driving through the megatropolis of Tokyo, just like anyone else.
As we wove our way through Daikoku PA and onto the Bayshore Route, the car seemed to take on a whole new personality. Picking up speed, it hunkered down on its haunches and gave us a glimpse of its true character. The memories which must come flooding back to Nanaumi-san whenever he takes this route through Tokyo into Yokohama must be poignant to say the least.
There may have been a time when you thought your boss was the fattest cat on the block in their S-Class or 5 Series, but I think we can all agree, there’s nothing more boss than the vice president of Mid Night and his black 964.
Toby Thyer
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Keyword: The Mid Night Executive Express