Top 10 modern Japanese performance cars

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High performance, technologically advanced motoring marvels and the Japanese auto industry have always gone hand-in-hand. But what’s most important is that, over the past few decades, superior offerings from Japan have not only landed firmly in the UK, but they’ve also dominated our shores.

What may have started off as a limited number of grey imports from Japanese domestic market (JDM)-only cars – quite often walking all over the best that Europe had to offer – is now about as mainstream as it gets. Japanese cars are now synonymous with the motoring landscape here in Britain and, when it comes to performance, they’re by no means the underdogs.

Of course, we could go on forever about the ‘tuner’ side of the market and what’s available with import-only cars, too. But just this once, we’ll limit our favourites to the modern Japanese performance road cars available brand-new over the past five years from UK main dealers, just to give you some supremely up-to-date examples. It also means that you’ll (hopefully) be looking at the most practical in terms of reliability, and the most affordable in terms of insurance and running costs… you may even get yourself a dealer warranty that’s worth the paper it’s printed on!

From cars with true racing pedigree to those with a legendary historic lineage, here are our top 10 modern Japanese performance cars that you can pick up today.

Isuzu D-Max

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True performance, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder, and while you may not be expecting to discover a pickup truck on our list – especially one that wouldn’t look out of place with a rocket launcher bolted to the bed – consider this: pickups are easily one of the fastest-growing segments of the UK vehicle market.

Besides, there’s no denying that no one does a reliable, dependable, tough-as-old-boots truck like Japan; not even the ‘gas’ V8 loving US of A can compete when it comes to offering the sheer grit and determination of the plucky, diesel-powered Japanese off-roader.

That’s right: what was once the vehicle of choice for the warzone or Aussie outback has all but taken over the fields of Europe. Nowadays, rural Britain, in particular, has finally chopped in its million-mile Land Rover Defenders and is awash with Mitsubishi L200s, Toyota HiLuxs, Nissan Navaras and – the king of them all – the mighty Isuzu D-Max.

As it turns out, a bale of hay and a shotgun should come as standard equipment here, you’ll find at least one working away on every farm over the length and breadth of the UK. The war machine has been countryfied, so much so that even the landed gentry are starting to leave their Range Rovers rusting away in the corner of the estate to pick up a D-Max.

But it makes complete sense; what they’ve discovered is not only a reasonably-priced, comfortable, well-equipped modern mud plugger, but the perfect weekend companion. The D-Max is practically the 21st century shooting brake.

Still, whether your reading habits happen to include Horse and Hound or Practical Poultry is besides the point; America may have been built by the home-grown pickup truck, but Britain is fast following suit with more than a little help from the Japanese motor industry.

Honda NSX

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Aside from the Nissan GT-R (at a push), the second-generation Honda NSX is the only offering on our list that’s considered a bona fide supercar. The only real problem in the eyes of the Instagram generation is that the big H-badge on the front is entirely… well, un-Italian.

In fact, the fact that the NSX is built in Ohio rather than Japan makes it decidedly American too. It’s also possibly a little on the expensive side for a ‘mere’ Honda hybrid. Perhaps that was the problem from the start.

Launched in 2016 to rave reviews, we think it’s something of a travesty that the sales figures just didn’t reflect the hype. Have a guess as to how many of these were sold in the whole of Europe last year? Three. Not three thousand or three hundred. Just three.

In fact, poor sales in the UK for the first few years meant that the NSX hasn’t been available brand new since 2020 either. The good news is that although there are only one or two around, you can still pick up one of these on a classified ads site – if, of course, you can stomach the 120K+ price tag.

But – and this is a rather large and important objection – we all know that there was always going to be a good degree of rarity value, which for some happens to be one of the most important criteria for a proper supercar.

Add that to the ability to induce drooling in any Japanese car fan, as well as the small matter of 573 horsepower (600 from the Type-S variant) from its twin-turbocharged V6 and trio of electric motors, and what you’ve got is perhaps the ultimate Japanese hybrid. What with sky-high fuel prices at the moment, we may even see the NSX making a comeback. You never know.

Subaru BRZ

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And of course, you just can’t have a Mitsubishi Lancer on the list without a significant doff-of-the-cap to the rival Subaru Corporation. But rest assured that this isn’t the turbocharged rally legend that the minds of all petrolheads immediately seem to travel to on the mention of the six-star badge. We have good reason, though. When it comes to bottom-clenching fun on the world’s B-roads, the 2+2 fastback coupe that is the Subaru BRZ is almost impossible to beat.

With its cheeky naturally aspirated boxer engine, rear-wheel-drive and ‘only’ around 200 horsepower, unlike its AWD cousins, this car was never developed for raw point-A to point-B speed on mud, snow and gravel. Instead, the car was more specifically made to offer an award-winning drive that sits so far on the side of amusing that it really is the stand-up comedian of the Japanese car world.

But, don’t go thinking that the BRZ is a joke; those skinny rear wheels induce plenty of oversteer as soon as you ‘gently’ depress the loud pedal. Couple this with its amazing looks and the sheer tunability of the thing, this is perhaps THE best affordable Japanese sportscar for the most discerning of millennials.

We guess the only question is, why the Subaru BRZ and not the even-more-popular Toyota GT86? Well, the truth is, apart from a few chassis and styling tweaks, they’re pretty much the same car. And, we simply can’t have our top 10 appearing biased towards Japan’s biggest manufacturer, can we? Especially with a Lexus in here, too. But in any case, there’s no doubt that, as collaborations go, this partnership between Subaru and Toyota will leave quite the legacy.

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X

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Speaking of rally cars, sneaking in under the radar is the Mitsubishi Evolution X, which was last available new in 2016. While we realise that’s a little more than half a decade so we’re breaking our own rules, we’ll allow it because that’s the whole point of the Mitsi Evo – it’s a car that’s historically broken all the rules.

From the very beginning, the brief was clear: to offer supercar slaying performance in what was, let’s face it, a reasonably boring saloon car. And with all the bells and whistles added, such as the big wings, deep bumpers, bonnet vents, all-wheel-drive and a snorting turbocharged engine, the Evo took the humble Lancer to the next level – and on to the WRC.

The Evo X (the ‘X’ of which denotes that the car is the 10th generation of the Evolution moniker) may not have been as popular with the modifying hardcore as the other nine iterations. This is mostly down to the surprise discontinuation of the 4G63 engine, an undeniable tuner favourite that constantly evolved from the inception of the Evo I in 1992 to the Evo IX in 2007. But the X represents something more: a performance car swansong from a time when Mitsubishi weren’t quite as focused on EVs and crossovers.

As the years have shown, too, the specially-developed 4B11T engine is still quite the piece of kit. With power that varies from around 280 horsepower in the base models to an almost ludicrous 440 in the all-singing, all-dancing FQ-440MR, every single one of them offers stunning performance. Even the UK police ordered more than a couple as their hot pursuit cars. According to many, they were never outrun by standard road cars either.

Of course, there’s no doubt that the Evo X looks amazing too, in an anime-inspired kind of way. It’s a far cry from the relatively sedate styling of most fast European saloons, and will still turn heads and snap necks in equal measure. But perhaps the best news is that, although they’re not exactly cheap (they never were), you’ll find that the vast majority of these cars are enthusiast-owned and well looked after. So don’t go thinking that age is the main consideration here; plenty of these are still practically brand new.

Toyota GR Yaris

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Yes, it’s another supremely modern Toyota, but no list of contemporary machinery would be complete without everyone’s darling road-going rally star, the GR Yaris. Such is its popularity since launching in 2020, the GR is set to become one of the most legendary – not to mention most desirable – superminis ever built.

Packing up 257hp, which will propel it 62mph in a fabric-of-space-time-bending 5.5 seconds, there’s no question that it’s significantly faster than the Yaris nameplate suggests. In fact, it’s questionable for many if this car is even a Yaris at all; it shares just a few parts, such as the light clusters, wing mirrors and aspects of the interior – even the rear half of the chassis comes from the Corolla.

All this can be explained by the fact that this is a homologation car built not so much for sales figures, but to enable Toyota to compete in the World Rally Championship (WRC). The WRC rulebook states that race cars have to be ‘based’ on a current road car, and this causes a uniquely modern problem.

Back in the heyday of rallying, a few hundred road cars was all that was required but fast forward to modern-day regulations and you’re looking at something closer to 25,000 road cars. So it’s an extremely expensive way to go racing. Most carmakers will simply pick one of their current superminis and modify it as best they can, but that’s just not Toyota’s style.

What’s extremely special here is that they’ve not only attempted what every other manufacturer has been afraid to – i.e. building their homologation car as a rally car from the ground up – but they’ve actually managed to pull it off.

Put together by their Gazoo Racing division under the supervision of Toyota’s four-time WRC champion, Tommi Makinen, the GR is basically a whole new car designed as nothing more than an amazing base for their competition cars. And sure, there’s a bit of Yaris DNA in there, but essentially, they’ve done away with most of the original, including the idea of having rear doors.

They’ve also crammed in the world’s most powerful three-cylinder production engine and lightest four-wheel-drive system. As you can imagine, with aluminium and carbon fibre panels thrown into the mix and the car’s svelte frame – which weighs only 1280kg – combined with the custom-tuned 1.6-litre turbocharged powerplant, the car gets down the road pretty quickly. And of course, it’s all just a starting point for the actual Rally Cars; don’t forget they only have to be ‘based’ on the road-going version. Pretty clever stuff from Toyota, and we’ll think you’ll agree.

So you may ask: isn’t a whopping 30 grand far too princely a sum for a mere Toyota Yaris? No, it isn’t. This is as close to a modern, purpose-built rally car as you’re ever going to get.

Lexus LC500

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Maybe the best thing about the Lexus LC is that it looks distinctly Japanese. What you get here is no mere copy of a European coupe; it has a no-holds-barred design style that seems to come straight out of the pages of a manga comic. There’s no doubting the national identity of this car, but while it looks absolutely stunning to any observer, there are plenty of unusual credentials that contradict what you’d traditionally recognise in a Lexus.

You see, despite the distinctly Japanese design and the fact that it comes from Lexus (one of the pioneers of automotive technology), there’s a thoroughly ‘old skool’ style 5-litre V8 offering 457bhp – and all without a turbocharger in sight.

There’s also a – albeit extremely clever – 10-speed automatic gearbox. This car, then, is every bit the hairy-chested muscle car that we all wanted it to be, but one that offers more than a hint of luxury along the way. It’s the automotive equivalent of Burt Reynolds in a perfectly cut but deliciously lairy A Bathing Ape suit and we like that. We like that a lot.

Okay, it may be true that, even with all that grunt, the two-ton beast isn’t in the realms of GT-R fast, and it can be a little fruity in anything but a straight line. But then again, Lexus has the mind-bendingly quick V10 LFA for all that – a genuine Japanese hypercar that’ll cost you the best part of half a million quid.

Naturally, all this is beside the point when it comes to the V8-powered LC500, because there’s plenty of performance on hand to match the jaw-dropping looks and – when you think about it – the rather ‘aesthetically pleasing’ appearance is the main reason you’d consider driving one of these in the first place, isn’t it? The fact that this one is far closer to a Grand Tourer than it is a track-focused sportscar isn’t a bad thing at all.

Honda Civic Type R (FK8)

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The FK8 Civic Type R is, dare we say it, one of the finest performance cars ever conceived. This is a genuine hyper hatch that all but stands alone in the market even after five years since it stormed its way onto the world stage.

While it’s true that the styling may (and has) put many off, what we have here is a true take-it-or-leave-it design that you’d imagine comes with all the impracticalities and compromises of other sporty hatchbacks in the sector… but there’s none of that here.

No, the big Honda has five seats, five doors, a big boot, and provides a relatively comfortable ride. It’s both an infinitely practical vehicle to live with and is a 320 horsepower, front-wheel-drive monster that will get to 62mph in under six seconds, then all the way up to 169mph after a little more time. Up until 2019, the FK8 also held the world record for the fastest FWD car ever. The words ‘critically acclaimed’ seem to be something of a huge understatement.

As with anything that’s ever sported a Type R badge, the FK8 is as much about forward-thinking technology as it is about a hardcore driving experience. Like just about every Civic Type R before it – along with the NSX and Integra Type Rs – this car was and still is very much ahead of its time.

As well as the pure grunt, the pursuit of the ultimate in downforce is a key factor (which explains why it looks like it does), along with specially developed adaptive dampers, a front limited slip differential and an all-new multi-link rear suspension setup. All this means that the Honda can deliver blistering performance as and when required but can quickly dial this back and transform into a relatively sedate family-friendly car. In other words, the FK8 is everything a hot hatch should be, and it’s every bit as relevant today as it was back in 2017.

Mazda MX-5 ND

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Simple and stripped down with a naturally aspirated engine at the front, all the drive at the rear, and lots of smiles in the middle, the MX-5 is and has always been the archetypal, realistic sportscar. Of course, some have mooted that ‘the world’s favourite rag top’ may have piled on a few pounds in the Noughties with the NC Variant, but there’s no doubt that there has been a distinct return to the magic formula with the latest fourth-generation MX-5, which has been on our roads since 2015.

Arguably a re-envisioning of the tightly focused Japanese design concept of Jinba Ittai (the ‘oneness of horse and rider’) offered by the MK1 MX-5 in the late 1980s, the modern ND variant is easily one of the most driver-focused cars of the 21st century. What’s more, you don’t have to push the speed into the realms of the supercar to have fun with one of these, namely because it just won’t get there in the first place and all the gratification comes within the national B-road speed limit.

In fact, we wouldn’t even look at the top-of-the-range model here. Trust us when we say that you should be after the revvy little 1.5-litre base model. With a perfectly balanced roadster that only weighs a ton, 130bhp is plenty to keep you smiling. If anything, the 182bhp 2.0-litre version seems to take something away from the carefree driving experience.

As cool as it looks too, for pure piloting thrills, we’d also steer clear of the heavier RF, or ‘Retracting Fastback’, model. The MX-5 in its purest form – with a small engine and a lightweight manual roof – has always offered the ultimate in sportscar simplicity. And, with so many on the market right now – including about a billion special editions over the past few years – we can’t see the MX-5 dropping the mantel of the world’s best-selling roadster anytime soon.

Toyota GR Supra Mk5

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You just can’t talk about the GT-R badge without mentioning the Supra, its oldest adversary for the hearts and minds of all true import fans. These two have always been the ‘Popstars: The Rivals’ of the big-power tuning industry.

Of course, it almost goes without saying that we’d all love an Mk4 Twin Turbo Supra parked on the drive, but with prices of the ‘90s classic fast approaching a shocking level, a brand new GR Supra is starting to look like a sensible, reliable and warranty-covered bargain.

But while the ‘Gazoo Racing’ Mk5 is a true sportscar in every sense of the word – developed purely for the driver with perfect 50:50 weight distribution, a lower centre of gravity than a Toyota GT86 and more rigidity than the Lexus LFA – it’s no track-focused supercar.

You see, the legendary Supra-Skyline rivalry we’ve all been talking about for the past 30 years isn’t at all apparent here. There’s little of the ingrained nostalgia that comes with the Supra nameplate, and the days of a good old fashioned punch up over the best of what Toyota and Nissan have to offer are all but over. And that’s because, at around half the price, it’s just not trying to be a Nissan GT-R. More to the point, it never will be. That’s no bad thing though; this is an entirely different animal that’s built to go head-to-head with the Porsche Cayman.

For sure, some will scoff about the manufacturing partnership with BMW. But the unenlightened rarely realise that the collaboration was merely a jumping-off point. BMW and Toyota put together a working drawing – basically a cut-down 2-Series nicknamed the Fullrunner – and, once that was approved, both manufacturers were free to go off and re-engineer every part. And that’s exactly what Toyota did. The result is the GR Supra in one corner and the BMW Z4 in the other – two extremely different outcomes.

There is one interesting little nugget that comes from the shared engine though. The ‘Toyota Re-tuned’ BMW B58 you’ll find in the Supra is the spiritual successor to their infinitely popular high-performance N54 and N55 engines, known in the modified world as ‘the new 2JZs’. So perhaps there is an important link to the legendary Mk4 Twin Turbo after all.

Nissan GT-R

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This is probably one of the most well-known Japanese performance cars, but with good reason. The big, bad Nissan GT-R is still – after 15 years on the streets – the king of modern Japanese performance cars. Often dubbed the ‘supercar for the PlayStation generation,’ the Gran Turismo-Racing badge alone offers quite the heritage. After all, the GT-R is practically a Skyline, even if Nissan always insists that it isn’t. We, the more dyed-in-the-wool Japanese car fans, all know the truth that’s written between the lines.

The other point, of course, is that it’s fast. Like seriously, blisteringly fast. This car started out in 2007 by stomping the big-money Porsche 911 Turbo around the Nürburgring, and has proven to be just about the quickest, and arguably the most practical, track-focused real-world sportscar available ever since. Perhaps best of all, the design remains as space-age and head-turning as ever; there’s no denying that the GT-R has aged rather well through the almost mind-boggling number of facelifts and updates over the years.

Speaking of updates. Steady increases in engine power mean that even a half-decade old GT-R will net you around 570 horsepower straight out of the box… if, of course, you can find a standard car that hasn’t already been tuned to 700+ by the array of high-end specialists, such as Litchfield Motors. But that’s what these next-generation V6 engines have been about from the start: the tuning potential. Each of these bulletproof lumps is still hand-built and signed by one of Nissan’s legendary ‘Takumi Craftsmen’ – a team of only five specially trained mechanics at their Yokohama plant. Every single GT-R is thoroughly track tested before being shipped too.

They’re also – for the time being at least – not suffering from the same dreaded ‘Skyline Tax’ as the more classic GT-R badged models, which have more than quadrupled in resale value over the past few years. Thankfully, this car has always been popular, which means there’s plenty to choose from.