El japonés qué cambio la historia para siempre / smokey nagata

Year 1999, United Kingdom, 4 a.m.

Smoky, the road is clear. There are no

police in the area. It's time to

make history.

There are moments in history where a single

decision changes everything. A

moment where someone stops following

the rules and starts writing their

own. Going from being a young farmer in

Hokido to becoming the most

famous tunneler in the world is not a

normal evolution, it's a plot hole. And

Kasuji's story with Nagat is that, with

decisions that put

his life at risk, rumors that no one has been

able to fully confirm, such as his

alleged involvement with the Midnight

Club

and the truth about an accident that

ended up banning him from the UK for more

than 10 years. But there is something more, a

little-told [music] rumor. Some

claim that before becoming

world-famous he was already testing his cars

at high speeds on open roads,

without cameras, without witnesses, as if

his obsession with speed

had been born long before

the world knew who he was.

This is the story of the most famous tuner

in all of [music] history, Smoky

Nagat.

Hido, Japan, 70. It is an isolated,

quiet place surrounded by fields. where

the days pass slowly and the routines don't

change. There is no automotive culture here,

no racing, no engines roaring

in the early hours, just farms, work

and a life that seems already [music]

written. Nagat was born into a

farming family. Their destiny, in theory, was

simple: to work the land and continue

what was already established. From a very

young age, something didn't fit with that routine.

[music]

While the other children played and

worked in the fields, he would look for

radios, bicycles, anything he

could take apart and put back together again.

[music] While the

rest accepted the rhythm of the farm, he

sought to leave it. However, his

first contact with mechanics was not

in a car as everyone would imagine, it was

with a tractor. There is no exact information on

which model it could have been. It could have

been a Kubota, a Yamar, or a

Mitsubishi, which were the most common in

those years. [music] What is certain is

that it was an old, heavy machine

designed only to work.

Hardly anyone would be interested

in a tractor, but for Nagata that didn't

matter because he didn't see what it was,

he saw what it could do. I took it apart, I

observed it, I put it back together again and again

, without manuals, without

instructions, [music]

only intuition. His parents at that

time did not see it as a problem.

They thought it was curiosity, something

fleeting, a phase that would eventually

disappear. At 15, that

obsession took a different form. Smoky

got a Mitsubishi Galan GTO. That

car wasn't working well, it had several

faults, but that was the car

Kasujiko chose. It wasn't because he was the best,

nor because he was the fastest,

because he wasn't just seeing a car, he

was seeing an opportunity. The Galant

GTO was not just any car, it was a

rear-wheel drive sports car born in

1970 at the height of the JDM explosion. A

lightweight chassis, a front engine, and

FR configuration. [music] Depending

on the version, it could have a

1.6L OHC 4-cylinder engine capable of

reaching almost 125 horsepower. [music]

A respectable figure for its time.

During the following weeks that car

was Smokey's personal project

. There were no forums, no guides,

just trial and error. Taking apart parts

without knowing if they would ever work again,

breaking accessories without money to

replace them over and over again. He started

driving it on rural roads, on

empty highways, anywhere he

could speed without

anyone seeing him, since because of his age he

couldn't have a driver's license. But

Smoky didn't care much about that. He started

taking him to school every day. A

15-year-old boy arriving at school

in his own car, parking it like

a teacher, was quickly

noticed and when they did he was

expelled. Forced once again to continue

working on the farm and destined for

a routine, but at that moment, unbeknownst to

him, a neighbor of his, a worker at

Toyota, had already seen what he was capable

of doing to him. He saw talent and gave him

an offer that would change his

life forever. He was offered a job at Toyota,

which for someone like him would be

impossible to believe, but it was, without

education, without being old enough and without

meeting any other requirements.

Nagat joined Toyota practically

as a child, with no history and no

preparation, but with something that no one else

had: an obsession. And what she did there

was exactly the same as what she did with

that heartthrob: observe, learn, and create.

In a short time he stopped being an apprentice and

became one of the most promising

of the brand, but there was a problem for

him. Repairing cars was never enough.

Nagat didn't just want to maintain the

cars, he wanted to transform them, he wanted to

know their limits, and so, while

everyone else went home after

work, he stayed at the company

experimenting, building, and testing

modifications until one day he was

discovered. The real problem was that he

was using the

brand's exclusive machinery and parts for his

personal use, and they already had him under scrutiny

because he was parking in the bosses' area,

defying the Japanese hierarchy.

All of this led to the consequence of

immediate dismissal. Now Smoky

found himself without school, without a job, and

without direction, but this time he was no longer

the same boy who repaired his car at

home. [music] The time he worked

at Toyota helped him understand

cars better and more about his true passion.

He understood that to get closer and closer

to his goals [music] he had to break

more and more rules. And then he made a

decision, he left Joaido behind and traveled to the

only place where [snort] that could

be possible, Tokyo. In the late

1970s, Tokyo was not just a

city, it was the epicenter of something that

was beginning to explode:

Japanese automotive culture. Workshops,

tuners, illegal races, a

place where speed was no longer an

idea, it was a culture. Upon arriving in Japan,

he got a job at Trust, one of the

first high-performance parts companies

in Japan, responsible for what would

later be known globally

as G Ready. And despite

Smoky's reputation at Toyota for being

ambitious and intelligent, his first

job at Trolls was as a packer. His

job consisted of putting turbos,

[music] manifolds and parts into boxes,

preparing them and sending them to customers.

A repetitive, limited job, far

from what I really wanted to do. But

for someone like Nagata, who tried to

hear about the commonplaces of already

written stories, this was not an obstacle;

[music]

was merely the door to this world.

After his shift, as everyone was

leaving, Nagat approached the

racing division. She offered to help with cleaning.

Anything that would bring him closer to that

division, he would do. Little by little he

began to go deeper. That

division included high-

performance engines, turbo systems, and

parts manufacturing. Everything I hadn't been able to

learn at school, I

was learning there. And it was at this

point where his ambition would be

stronger than him. Once again, he began to

live a double life. By day he was a

packer, and by night he stayed in the

workshop until dawn using

precision machinery, welding machines, and

specialized tools. Everything to

work on your car, manufacturing parts,

testing configurations and pushing the

limits of the car. All of this, he recalls,

was without permission and for months no one

[in the music industry] noticed, but as nothing lasts

forever, management discovered what he

was doing. And this time [music]

was not like the other times, it was not only

a dismissal, but it was

even a legal problem. I was using

company resources,

expensive technology, time, and facilities. And in

any Japanese company, that

meant immediate dismissal and an

investigation to find out if it was

leaking information to other brands

about its components. But this

investigation was not carried out upon seeing what

Smoky was really building.

When they saw it, they saw something different.

They saw precision, they saw quality, and

they saw ingenuity. Management made

a decision that completely broke

with Japanese corporate culture. They didn't

fire him, they made a pact. He could

continue developing his pieces, but

all with one condition. Nobody could have

known. Everything had to be kept

secret. [music]

That agreement not only saved his

career in Tros, it defined and changed the

course of Japanese modification culture

. A rumor from this time

mentions that he was so good that Tross

quickly promoted him to the

prep division. But his double

life actually consisted of [music] selling

pieces under his own name, Top

Secret. While he was still working for

Tros, the bosses realized it because

customers were calling Tros

asking for Nagat's pieces.

During all this time, Smoky was no longer

just working on cars; he was starting to

make a name for himself on the streets. On

Tokyo's highways, in the early morning,

when the city slept, Nagat tested

his machines at over 200 km/h, dodging

traffic, always looking for more,

always faster, always further,

without using cameras and without keeping

records of those speeds. Little by

little, the culture began to notice. Other

enthusiasts, other tuners, and other crazy people

like him wanted the same thing they had

seen on the road. They wanted that same

speed, they wanted that which was

different. Although he wasn't seeking

fame on the roads, the

culture and the racers themselves were

making his name

synonymous with speed. It was at this

point that he understood something key. I

could no longer keep following a company and

continue using its borrowed machinery and

building a reputation for that company.

[music] He needed to create his own

legacy. And so it was. In 1991 he resigned from

Trost and opened his own workshop, a place

where there were no limits, where there

were no rules, where he could work without

hiding from the managers and the name he

chose was Top Secret and without knowing it he had just

started something that would change

Japanese tuning forever. What

started with a tractor had

become a workshop and the creation of

cars that no farmer would

ever have imagined. But for that,

I needed available capital. This is what they

never tell you about building

cars this way. It's not just

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sponsoring this video. Going back to the

story of Smoky, in the early

90s, Japan was already at its peak

. Not only economically, it was a

time when brands competed. Each

manufacturer wanted to build the best

engine, the best chassis, and the fastest car

. That was the cause of the

birth of cars that

are now legends: the Nissan Skyland GTR R32,

the RX7 FD with its rotary engine, the

Honda NSX, which restructured what was

known as a Japanese sports car,

and the Toyota Supra A80 with an engine

ahead of its time. The streets of

Japan were full of these cars that

gave more speed than

their technical specifications indicated. And around that time,

there was a rumor circulating among agencies, something

known as the Gentlemen's Agreement

of 1989. An unwritten agreement

between Japanese brands was a

response to the rise in

traffic accidents and pressure from JAMA. The

pact was made up of Toyota, Nissan,

Honda, Mazda and Mitsubishi and it was about

electronically limiting their cars to

less than 280 horsepower to maintain the

safety of their drivers, which on

paper was true, but on the street it was not

. Beyond these brands,

what was also dominating on the streets

was the Mateur competition.

Modification workshops everywhere,

tuners seeking fame, and

increasingly extreme projects. They all

wanted the same thing: more power, more

horsepower, more numbers. But Nagatha

wasn't interested in just numbers because

he knew that speed could be

easily achieved in a light and powerful car.

[music] But maintaining a speed for

several kilometers was the difficult part, even

with special engines. But all that

speed is useless if you can't brake.

He sought a balance in his cars; he

wanted the golden car that no one else could

have, and that was the basis of his philosophy.

One that at that moment seemed boring.

Top Secret wasn't just going to build

cars for the day dinosaur, they were going to build

cars for the street, for the highway and

for sustained high speeds and, of

course, to beat everyone at Awang

Wangan. [music] And that's where Smoky

began to become a

local legend. While others tested their

cars in controlled environments, he went out in

the early hours of the morning when Tokyo was asleep, when

traffic was minimal and the margin

of error was practically zero. There

he tested his creations by

racing at [music] speeds of over 200 km, 250 km

and ever closer to the limit. They were

speed tests that few

understood. Gradually, Top Secret

began to stand out by serving

different clients and creating different

cars. Their early projects based

on platforms like the Skyland GTR R32 and

33 weren't just fast cars, they were

consistent and stable,

predictable at speed where other

cars could be. But as always happens

in those kinds of environments, the rumors

started to grow. Stories of

golden cars racing in the early morning, at

speeds that no one could verify,

but that everyone came to believe. And among

all those rumors, one in

particular appeared related to the Midnight

Club, a real group, a

clandestine organization made up of

the best drivers in Japan. Not just

anyone could enter this club. It wasn't

just about having a

fast car, it was about having control,

discipline [music] and something much more

important, guts. Mistakes were not

an option, and this is where the story

gets blurry, because it has never been

officially confirmed, but many

claim that Smoky was close to this

world. Some say he was part of it,

and others say he was rejected. Not because it was

n't fast enough, but

because it was too risky.

Smoky's style of burning rubber in the street,

filming himself for magazines, clashed with the

low profile of the club. However, his

connection to this scene was undeniable.

And although he didn't need to belong to any

club to build his own legend,

his reputation began to grow more and more each day

. Customers arrived looking for something

specific; they wanted a top secret. It was

at that moment that Nagat

realized that he was no longer just

building cars, he was building

a brand, a firm, and a philosophy. And

that philosophy also had a symbol, and it

was the color gold. And that color

wasn't available to just anyone; you

couldn't afford it. Only the cars that

truly represented Nagata's vision

, those that had been pushed to the

limit and had proven something,

literally those that were marked top secret, were allowed to

be driven. And so, project

after project, Top Secret was

becoming the most popular workshop in

Japan. But Nagatha was still not

satisfied with that, because for him Japan

was not enough. It wasn't enough to

just master the Wangan, he wanted something

more. He wanted the whole world to know what he

was capable of. And to achieve that, I

had to do something different, something that wouldn't just

remain rumors or a

story told in the early hours of the morning. I wanted

proof, a demonstration, a moment that

crossed those boundaries. And that

opportunity came from the other side of the

world in the United Kingdom, an invitation from

one of the biggest

Japanese tuning magazines, Max Power Magazine, they

presented him with a simple idea: take one

of his cars to an exhibition,

impress the European public and

return. But Nagatha didn't intend to

do just that. He didn't travel just to

show off his car, he traveled to

grow his brand and for that he needed a

special car, [music] a project he had been

building for some time, a

Toyota Supra MK4, but not just any

Supra. The A80 Supra was famous for its

2JZ GTE engine, an almost

indestructible block capable of withstanding enormous

amounts of force. For most people

that engine was already perfect, but for

Nagata it wasn't enough. He

completely replaced it and installed the

RB26 DET engine from the Nissan Skyland. That engine

was created to dominate motorsport in

group A, but this was no

ordinary R26. Nagata also modified it.

Forged internal components,

structural reinforcements and a twin turbo system

with pressures exceeding two

bars, resulting in close

to 1000 horsepower. And this

[music] was the car chosen for that

night. With everything prepared, he invited

Option Magazine to

document everything, and so they crossed

half the world. They arrived in the United Kingdom.

During the day everything was normal:

exhibition, demonstration, warnotes. The

public was impressed with the car; it

was aggressive and different. But many

comments said they didn't believe that

story. They didn't believe that Supra

could exceed 300 km/h, or even

reach 250 km/h. They thought it

was just exaggeration, just

marketing. But all of that fueled

Smoky's relentless desire to race that night and

prove that this was no mere

story. Smoky knew there was a

motorway long enough to

do it and it was the A1 that connects London

with the north of England and Scotland,

more than 600 km of motorway. At the end of

the event they waited until nightfall,

exactly at 4 in the morning.

Hours earlier it had rained and this left a

wet floor, a practically

empty highway, where there was no traffic, no

permits, there was only a car and its

creator. Nagat stopped in the middle of the

lane, the engine was running, the

air was heavy, and this was the moment

to make history. And then he started by

doing a long run, warming up the

tires and preparing everything for a

single attempt. It was at that moment that he

released the brake and accelerated fully.

First gear and the tires were spinning.

Second gear and it had no traction.

Third, the car was still struggling against

the wet floor and seconds later, the

Supra began to stabilize. The

speed increased from 200, 240, 280. The

world around us moved more slowly. The

cars, the lights turned into lines

on the windshield, and the car kept

pushing. It reached over 300

km/h. He had done it. More than 300 km

marked and recorded. It seemed that

Smoky had already won until

problems arose. Blue lights in

the rearview mirror. The police were

trying to catch him, but at that

speed they wouldn't be able to. Although

he could have continued on and disappeared

at the end of the road,

Nagat did the opposite; he slowed down

and stopped. She knew she had

crossed one of the most delicate lines

and this time there was no going back. Smoky

was driving an unregistered car in the

UK, driving at

high speeds on public roads. He was arrested and

spent a night in jail waiting for the

translator, since no one at the station

spoke Japanese. When the

translator arrived, he was told that he would be

arrested for speeding and

recording his crime. But this is where the

story takes a turn, because although they

knew what he had done, they couldn't

recover the cameras and they didn't have

exact proof of the speed he

had reached. Without

direct evidence, the case changed. Nagatha

pleaded guilty to driving at a

much lower speed, approximately

190 km/h. The sentence was a fine of

155 pounds, approximately $200, the

suspension of his international driving license

and a 10-year ban from

returning to the United Kingdom. After that

scandal, Smoky thought everything would fall

apart. His workshop, his reputation,

and everything he had worked for was about to

be destroyed in a... But what

happened next became part of history.

Within days, the videos, the

magazine, the rumors, and the story

exploded. The whole world started talking

about the same thing: a Japanese man who had

exceeded 300 km on a

public highway in the rain. The comments

about the police also generated a lot of

discussion. Some mentioned, "If it

hadn't been for the police, who knows how far it

would have gone." [music] At that

moment, Top Secret ceased to be a

local workshop and became a

global legend. What should have destroyed

her reputation multiplied it, and Nagata,

far from stopping, did what she

knew best [music] to do: go further. And that would

lead him to build something much

bigger, a Supra with an engine that

would change everything. At this point, Toyota

had no plans to launch a

true successor to the Supra. The legacy of the Toyota

Supreme MK4 seemed to have stalled, and for

Smokey [music]

that was not acceptable. So he made a

decision. If the brand wasn't going to build

the next Supra, he would do it from

scratch again. He chose a Supra, [music]

which would be called Final Evolution,

but this time what he did surpassed everything

before. The music wasn't about

improving on S2JZ or repeating RB26. It was about

doing something that no one had

done up to that point. He removed the

original engine and [music] in its place installed

a B12 from a limousine, the 1 GZFE, the

engine from a Toyota Century,

Toyota's most exclusive car, the

5.0 L B12, designed for smoothness,

quiet and [music] reliability. That

engine had something key, and it was in its

block. It was able to withstand

pressure, able to resist forces,

able to resist abuse, and could be

completely transformed. That's

exactly what he did. The engine was

completely rebuilt with

forged components, a

different fuel system, and most

importantly, two turbochargers, one for each

cylinder bank, achieving around

900 to 1000 horsepower and over

700 lb-ft of torque. But the

engine was just a small part

of this Supra. What it needed most

was stability and aerodynamics. So

the Supra also changed completely,

adding a robust web body,

aerodynamic improvements focused on high

speed, adjustable suspension capable of

adapting to movement and of course

the iconic gold color [music]

of Top Secret. And after all this,

the time would come to break a new

record with this new Supra, and that was to achieve

400 km/h. But this time Smoky wasn't going

to make the same mistake. This time it would be

a private road. This time he would do it

according to the law. For that, he chose one of

the most important places in the

automotive world. Nardon Ring, a

circular track of more than 12 km designed

specifically for

speed testing. With banked turns so steep

that at a certain speed you don't need to

turn the steering wheel. The car stays

in place due to pure physics, a place

where manufacturers test their

supercars and where Smoky would go to test

his. [music] The Supra was ready

and the goal was, of course, to reach 400

km/h. The speed mark started

[music] and the car began to accelerate.

100, 150, 200, 250 and 300. Stability

was the key. Every vibration, every

adjustment, every detail I felt in the

steering wheel and then [music] surpassed the

350 km mark. The goal was close,

[music] but it wasn't enough yet. The

engine could not increase the

speed any further, and the highest speed it recorded

was 358 km/h.

[music] It

wasn't the 400 they were expecting. But

despite that, Smoky had created a

twin-turbocharged B12 Supra capable of competing with

the fastest cars of that era, such as

the Bugatti [music] Veyron, which achieved

407 in 2005, proving that you don't

need a supercar to

reach those limits. Exceeding

350 km/h was not the end point

for Nagata; it was merely a test,

a test [music] that his way of

understanding cars did not belong to

any known rules, and in this way

Top Secret ceased to be a workshop that

prepared fast cars to

become an icon where each

project was a bet against the

fastest cars in the world. The

next golden car to arrive was a

Nissan GTR R35, a modern platform

already created from the factory for high

performance. The car was perfect, but

not for Smokey. So the car was

taken far beyond its

original configuration, through

deep adjustments in aerodynamics,

power management [music]

and high-speed stability. The

result was a figure that once again

shook the automotive community: 377

km/h. And the story didn't end there.

After Top Secret had already

proven that it could break the

370 barrier and even approach speeds

that seemed incredible for a

street car, Smokey's reputation was no longer

limited to just the tracks. It

was no longer just a top-of-the-line speed tuner

. In the early 2000s, a new

[music] competition was gaining

strength on the streets and circuits,

Drift. And in 2002 the

D1 Grand Prix was officially born, the first

professional drift championship in Japan. [music]

For many tuners, this was a

completely different world, but

someone like Nagata, who had always

taken cars [music] to the edge of

physics, was simply another way of

expressing the same thing. Total control in

chaos. Top Secret began to get involved

as a professional team, cars

prepared with extreme power, but

also with something that had not previously been a

priority for him [music]. Balance

in the chassis, suspension and

cornering response. in 2004 and that

approach had [music] results. With a

Nissan Silvia S15 prepared by Top

Secret, he managed to win the 1

GP championship, demonstrating that the brand's philosophy was

not only about breaking

speed records [music], and they achieved it again

in 2021 with a Nissan

Laurel C3. But the project that

really showed how far

[music] could go was the BR32 GTR. At

first glance it's a

completely modified Skyland R32, [music]

widened and ready for the track.

But what made it unique wasn't

its appearance, but what was under

the hood. Underneath, it was fitted with an

R35 GTR engine, a 3.8L twin-turbo B6, more

modern than the one in the original chassis. And from then on, it

was

total integration. It wasn't just about changing

the engine. The

R35's dual-clutch transmission was incorporated with a

complete electronic system, its digital dashboard

and all the modern control architecture

. Even everyday comfort features

like air conditioning and

electric assistance systems were

adapted to its classic chassis, a

Skyline from past generations [music]

with about 790 horsepower.

This project not only represents

power, it represented the idea that

two eras in engineering could coexist

[music]

in a single vehicle without losing

identity. And with each project like

this, Top Secret made one thing clear. They

weren't building modified cars,

[music]

they were redefining what a car

could do. To this day, their

projects continue to make history,

even with hybrid cars. What

is not 100% confirmed is his

direct involvement with the Midnight Club, since

even the creator himself was silenced

to maintain the prestige of the Midnight

Club. And if you don't know what I'm

talking about, you should know the story of

Aishi Yoshida, the creator of the Midnight

Club. Click on this [music] video.

Don't forget to follow me. I am Taqueda, a

street journalist.