Why Smokey Nagata's V12 Supra Is A Tuner's Dream Car

Car and Driver writer/editor/publisher and Automobile magazine founder David E. Davis once said, "I firmly believe that everyone who is worth anything at all should own a 12-cylinder car before they die." But that depends on the 12-cylinder car in question. Special creations like the 27-liter V12 Beast certainly count. In the case of the 1,000ish horsepower V12 Toyota Supra built by JDM legend Kazuhiko "Smokey" Nagata and his tuning shop Top Secret, Mr. Davis is beyond correct. You should want this car. 

Nagata created the V12 Supra to go 249 mph. While it didn't reach that, he did manage 222 mph on the Nardo track in Italy. That's not even the car's fastest speed; that would be 229 in Tokyo Bay's Aqua-Line tunnel, which we must inform you is not a racetrack. No, it's a regular street anyone can drive on when visiting the Boso Peninsula for some seaside relaxation.

Everything about the V12 Supra is designed around going fast for as long as possible. In addition to the two HKS GT2540 turbos Nagata slapped on the heavily modded Toyota Century 1GZ-FE V12 (the only V12 passenger car engine Japan ever produced), nitrous oxide injection, a rear-mounted radiator with ducts that replaced the rear quarter windows, and, as God intended, a six-speed manual transmission. Between the rear tires is a Cusco limited-slip diff to keep from turning one tire or the other into Bridgestone RE-01R-scented incense, a distinct possibility with a drivetrain that puts about 930 hp and 745 lb-ft of torque at the wheels.

Covering the Supra is a gold paint scheme that is reserved for Top Secret's most impressive and significant cars, and yes, it inspired the "2Fast 2Furious" Supra. Top Secret also painted the GReddy brake calipers and Volk Racing GT-F rims with gold highlights to match. The exterior oozes JDM coolness, with Nagata's penchant for emphasizing the Supra's natural muscular appearance. Fenders are flared 33 millimeters up front and 50 millimeters in the back to accommodate the wider tires, but they don't look slapped on. The aero kit achieves the appropriate balance for reaching relativistic speeds: enough downforce to stay planted, but not so much that it creates excessive drag.

The kicker is that, while the car was originally estimated to be worth around $500,000 in 2007 –which would be more than $750,000 in June 2025 — it sold at auction for a little over $80,000 in 2018 to Trap Team in Florida. The teamdid a video with the That Racing Channel on YouTube about the car shortly after acquiring it. In May 2025, the YouTube channel OG Schaefchen visited RMC Miami, a dealer that specializes in exotics, classics, and JDM legends, and featured the V12 Supra in a video. Don't reach for your wallet just yet, the car isn't listed in RMC's inventory. Maybe give them a call.

Any discussion of Smokey Nagata's cars is pointless without discussing the man himself. American stock car racing fans know Smokey Yunick, who did one of the wildest tricks in Nascar history, but every car fanatic needs to learn of the soft-spoken, cigarette-huffing Japan-native Smokey Nagata. Yunick got the moniker "Smokey" from his smoke-belching bike during his early motorcycle racing days. Depending on who you ask, Nagata's called "Smokey" because he loves smoke-filled burnouts or from his attempt to take every breath through on-fire tobacco.

Nagata was raised on a farm in Hokkaido, where he and his dad worked on cars and enjoyed driving fast. At 16, he was hired by Toyota, where he was subsequently fired for modding a personal car on company time. He then joined tuner Trust before founding his own company, Top Secret, so-called because he tuned cars in secret to avoid ticking off Trust's owners. 

Oh, and Smokey Nagata got arrested in the U.K. in 1998 for driving 194 mph (possibly 197), still the highest speed anyone's reached on a public highway in the country. Nagata was worried about the fallout, but the incident just made him a worldwide tuning celebrity. As Ozzy Osbourne proved when he bit the head off of a dove in a meeting with record execs, there's no bad publicity. By the way, the V12 Supra is not the car from that famed U.K. run; that was another Supra with a swapped RB-26 inline-6. That car was purchased by a Dubai prince, because, of course, it was.