JAPANESE CARS FASTER THAN A CORVETTE C8 RANKED

We all love speed. As kids, we'd aspire to the car with the most power, the quickest 0–60 time or, crucially, the highest top speed. The 2025 Chevrolet Corvette is a properly quick car, with the Z51 package raising the maximum velocity to 194 miles per hour. It's not super expensive either, with the car and package coming in at only around $78k - a steal if you only care about having the fastest car. There are some Japanese cars faster than the Corvette C8, though.

Cars are a great way for a nation to show their engineering prowess, and Japan has certainly delivered on that front in the modern day. We love the tuning culture, angular designs and rock-hard reliability of Japanese cars, but which cars beat out the magical 194 mph number of America's homegrown supercar? Let's break them down.

2011 Lexus LFA Nürburgring Edition

Top Speed: 202 mph

Want a Lexus LFA but faster? Of course you do. The LFA Nürburgring Edition is an ultra-low run of special LFA models that were given a power and aerodynamic bump. Costing almost half a million dollars, it was a hard pill to swallow, but it made up for the hole in your pocket with its incredible soundtrack. The V10 is one of the most legendary engines ever produced, and any car enthusiast melts at the sound of one.

Akio Toyoda, Toyota's chairman, was one of the biggest supporters of the LFA's production and believed it could show what Toyota engineers and the Lexus brand were capable of. He even raced one himself during the 24 hours of the Nürburgring race under a pseudonym, as he was so involved in the project. A V10 was chosen for its ability to rev higher and didn't have the mass of a V12.

With its top speed of around 202 miles per hour, the Nürburgring Edition is the fastest LFA ever made. Buyers were given lessons from Nürburgring instructors as well as a one-year pass to the circuit. Given how much development was done on the Green Hell, it's no surprise this car lapped it in seven minutes and 14 seconds on street tires.

2024 Nissan GT-R Nismo

Top Speed: 205 mph

If you utter the words 'Japanese performance car', then the Nissan GT-R will naturally appear. After almost two decades in production, the R35 generation has finally gone off sale worldwide, and we're going to miss it dearly. With 600 horsepower and an aero kit, the Nismo was the ultimate performance-focused GT-R from the factory, and its red accents and black bonnet make it look perfectly suited to the track.

While it was hanging on by the end, the GT-R did receive updates throughout its life, namely facelifts in 2010 and 2017. The Nismo was introduced in 2013 and was focused on the all-important Nürburgring Nordschleife lap time. An early 2013 version did it in seven minutes and eight seconds, which is also faster than the Corvette's time of around seven and a half minutes.

Even though the engineers knew production was coming to a close not long after, they kept fiddling with this 15-year-old design with the 2024 model, giving it revised suspension and two turbos that are straight from the GT3 race car. Nissan hasn't announced its replacement just yet, but some say that it may be all-electric.

1998 Nissan R390

Top Speed: 220 mph (estimated)

We're slightly cheating with this one, as the Nissan R390 is more of a Le Mans race car that was detuned for road usage. Built as part of homologation for the race, only one road car exists, and it's now enshrined in the Nissan Heritage Center. The top speed was never properly verified, but most assume it was around the 220 miles per hour mark, making it one of the fastest road cars ever.

It uses the same headlights as the Nissan 300ZX as the rules required them to include some mass-produced parts, and Nissan followed the Europeans in making it the lights. Although it only made one, the company did say that if it produced it, it would cost a hefty one million dollars, which doesn't seem too farfetched nowadays. Given its race car roots, it's no surprise this is on our list of Japanese cars faster than the Corvette C8.

Similar to the Mercedes CLK GTR and Porsche 996 GT1, the road car isn't well suited to public highways, but it does show the engineering prowess of the manufacturer behind it. 0–60 mph takes only 3.9 seconds, and the quarter mile is over after just 11.9 seconds. That's seriously quick, as the modern C8 can reach it in 11.2 seconds. Yes, it's faster, but it has an automatic gearbox, more advanced computer systems and modern tires.

1998 Toyota GT-One

Top Speed: 230–236 mph (estimated)

Straight after the R390, we get the Toyota GT-One, which follows a similar route. There are apparently two models, one which is located in Germany and another in a museum in Japan. Powered by a twin-turbo V6, the race car version took second place in 1999 after a late tire failure, which was heartbreaking for a car that only debuted the year previously. The team wouldn't continue into 2000 given its new involvement in Formula One.

The body is sculpted in the wind tunnel for maximum aerodynamics, and behind the passenger is a race-derived engine that was slightly detuned for road use, but no one really knows exactly how much power it makes. Despite the massive size of the car, it still weighed in at under a ton. The driver can see the front wheels through a cut-out in the body as this helps cool them down. Unlike many other road-going racers, the interior is actually a nice place to be with tan lining and high-quality buttons.

Rules in 1998 stated that cars must retain some resemblance to road cars, and that meant having a trunk you can put a small suitcase in. Some decided that they didn't need a hatch for the trunk (which helped with aerodyanmics), but Toyota decided to challenge the rules even more. They convinced the scrutineers that an empty fuel tank would be able to hold a suitcase, meaning the car was legal. Surprisingly, they bought it and let Toyota race.

2020 Aspark Owl

Top Speed: 256 mph

If you want an all-out Japanese hypercar, the Aspark Owl has you covered. With a quad-motor setup, it has just under 2,000 horsepower to propel it to a mid-bending 256 mph top speed. That's not as impressive as the 0–60 time, which is rated at just 1.7 seconds. That would seem insane to people 10 years ago!

Aspark isn't typically a car manufacturer, with the company focused on engineering services. This meant it had to partner up with Italian automotive manufacturer MAT, or Manifattura Automobili Torino, to produce this ultra-exclusive vehicle. MAT is known for partnering up with Glickenhaus to create the SCG 003 and the Apollo Intensa Emozione, so it knows a thing or two about extreme vehicles. When it came out, the Owl was offered at $3.2 million, which is definitely more than a Corvette in Japan...

In terms of cars faster than a Corvette, this low-slung machine would run rings around it. It's meant to compete with the Rimac Nevera R and the Pininfarina Battista, but with a huge price tag, it never really caught on. The company has also built a convertible version of the car, which is an engineering feat in itself given the weight and rigidity challenges of combining open-top motoring and electric power.

Sources: Nissan, Aspark, Lexus, Motor1, The Drive, Chevrolet

2025-11-08T09:09:39Z