Nobuteru Taniguchi (谷口 信輝, Taniguchi Nobuteru, born May 18, 1971, Hiroshima) is a Japanese racing driver and drifting driver who currently competes in the Super GT racing series. Taniguchi is commonly nicknamed "NOB" (first three letters from his name, meaning "No One Better") or "The Pimp" as a reference to his S15 Silvia which he is best known for.
Taniguchi is a three-time Super GT GT300 class champion, eight-time Super Taikyu class champion, and D1 Grand Prix champion.
Career
Taniguchi began his motorsport career when he was racing minibikes and won a Honda sponsored All Japan Mini Bike race, which took place at its Suzuka Circuit.[1] Taniguchi would progress into four wheels and became interested in drifting when he acquired a Toyota AE86.[1] He moved to Tokyo in 1998 with the aim of becoming a motor journalist.[2] He also worked at Takahiro Ueno's car bodykit company, Car Make T&E to supplement his racing career whilst competing in various one make series racing with the Toyota Celica and Vitz and participating in drift events.[1] In 1999, he came into the attention of HKS when he won a Suzuka Clubman Race in a Honda Civic sponsored by Bride. HKS signed him up as a test driver and as a sponsor, as well as sponsoring his S15 Silvia for drift events.[1]
Drifting
Taniguchi started out in street racing with his AE86 when he was with his team 'After-Fire' and competed in the various drift competitions like Video Option's Ikaten, Battle Magazine's BM-Cup, and CarBoy's DoriCon GP.
D1 Grand Prix
In the inaugural season of D1 Grand Prix in 2001, Taniguchi won the championship with his team After-Fire sponsored by HKS, after winning two of the five rounds.
However starting in 2002, he didn't have much chances with the series champion title as he did in 2001 as the series had banned the use of S-tires/Semi-slicks that was occurring the year before but he was doing very well, staying as a seeded driver. He finished the 2002 season in 2nd place as the runner-up with one round win and two podiums, and the 2003 season in 4th place with one win and two podiums.
Mid way through the 2004 season of D1, Taniguchi switched to an Altezza which had not been properly set up and had shown some technical issues that many believe cost him the championship that year, as he finished in 2nd place as the runner-up with one win and three podium finishes. Taniguchi did admit that he wanted to finish the 2004 season with the S15 RS-2 instead, as well as wanting to retire the car with the champion title under its name. During the 2005 season, the switch to Altezza was proving to be a mistake for HKS and NOB which led them to quit the series at the end of the season, with only one podium finish. Both of them did not return to the D1 series until 2008 as a spot participant. Taniguchi and HKS fully returned to the series again in 2012 with a Toyota 86 and scored two podium finishes, and continued competing until 2014.
Taniguchi has gone through four cars with HKS for D1, between 2001 and 2005, the RS1 Hyper Silvia S15 (Crashed by Keiichi Tsuchiya, eventually rebuilt for 2002 and later revised as a backup car with a similar build to the RS2 in 2003, initially brought to HKS Europe but it was later bought by Rockstar Energy to be used in Formula D), and RS2 Hyper Silvia S15 (brought to HKS Europe), the Genki Racing Project Altezza, which was designed with off-the-shelf HKS parts, for the purpose that a private drifter could copy the car, HKS also built second Altezza nicknamed IS220Z which originally his car but he lend it to be built by HKS for event.[3]
He had the most wins in D1 Grand Prix until his tally was overtaken by Youichi Imamura in 2005.
Taniguchi retired from professional drifting competition after a D1GP exhibition event in 2016.
Outside D1GP
He also drifts a Toyota Aristo (Lexus GS300 in US) for non-D1 events. In 2016 he purchased a Nissan 180SX as a drift practice car with suspension and arm parts produced and being set up by fellow D1GP champion Masato Kawabata. The car is also equipped with Kick Blue body kit which also produces by Kawabata.
HKS and Formula Drift made an exclusive partnership in 2007 that brought NOB to the United States to perform drifting exhibitions at Formula Drift events. Taniguchi made his first appearance at Formula Drift's second event Road Atlanta, May 11 and 12, 2007.
He regularly appeared in Formula Drift Japan event as Japanese commentator alongside announcer Tom Saeba and sometimes as judge.
Racing
Super GT
Taniguchi has been heavily involved in the JGTC / Super GT racing series since 2002, winning the championship 3 times in the GT300 class.
In 2002 he began competing in JGTC with RE Amemiya in a Mazda RX-7. He has continued to compete in the series as it was renamed Super GT in 2005. Having previously raced for Racing Project Bandoh in 2004-2005, Direxiv/ R&D Sports in 2006 and Team Taisan in 2007-2008, he returned to Amemiya in 2009.
Taniguchi driving Goodsmile Racing BMW Z4 GT3 in 2014
After RE Amemiya's withdrawal at the end of 2010 season, he moved to Goodsmile Racing using a BMW Z4 GT3, and won the GT300 Championship title in the 2011 season alongside Taku Bamba. Again with the BMW Z4 GT3 this time alongside 2009 champion Tatsuya Kataoka, Taniguchi captured 3rd place in the 2014 season finale at Twin Ring Motegi, secured 78 points in total for his season, narrowly winning the GT300 Championship title again with no points difference but only 1 more race victory. In the 2017 season, driving the Mercedes-AMG GT3, he won his third GT300 Championship title again alongside Kataoka and both became the drivers with the most titles in the GT300 class of Super GT.
Super Taikyu
Taniguchi's class championship-winning #1 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 (right) in 2012
Taniguchi began competing in the Super Taikyu series in 2001, winning a total of eight class championship titles since then. Early on in his Super Taikyu career, he won a class championship in 2002 and 2005.
He return for one off appearance with D'Station Racing for final round of 2023 season driving Aston Martin Vantage GT8R in ST-1 class. He is reunited with Manabu Orido whom he partnered when the two win the championship in 2005.[5] The duo win their class after starting from pole position, the two first win together in 18 years.[6]
Time attack
He was also a test driver for HKS in 2004 and 2007 where he drove the HKS Time Attack Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 7 and set a 54.37 second lap time at Tsukuba Circuit (famous for its complexity and focus on cornering skills), and again in 2007, where he drove the all carbon fiber body HKS CT230R Mitsubishi Evolution and set the Tsukuba Time Attack record of 53.589 seconds (video).
Taniguchi and HKS have not limited their racing campaign to Japan. In 2005, Taniguchi drove the HKS USA Mitsubishi Evolution in the Car and Driver Super Tuner Challenge against top US manufacturers and drivers. Taniguchi beat the nearest competitor by three seconds, and set the day's fastest ¼ mile, 0-60, and road course times. In 2006, Taniguchi drove the HKS Speed Source RX-8 in the Grand Am Cup race at Arizona's Phoenix International Raceway and set the fasted qualifying time for any Mazda RX-8.
Endurance racing
Taniguchi's #28 Petronas Syntium BMW Z4 M Coupé at the Sepang 12 Hours
Taniguchi had competed in several One Make Racing series including Netz Cup Altezza and winning championship in both Civic Race and Gazoo Racing 86/BRZ Race.
He now lives in an apartment in Yokohama opposite his friend and former employer Takahiro Ueno.
He had hobby of golfing in his day off.
He regularly wrote blog on his activities in Ameba.
Youtube
On 24 March 2020 he created his own Youtube channel called NOBチャンネル (NOB Channel) and uploaded his first video on 3 April and has since regularly uploading every Friday, his content including a car review, his project cars and many motorsport related videos.
As of August 2022 he has over 200,000 subscribers.
Complete Drifting Results
Colour
Result
Gold
Winner
Silver
2nd place
Bronze
3rd place
Green
Last 4 [Semi-final]
Blue
Last 8 [Quarter-final]
Purple
Last 16 (16) [1st Tsuiou Round OR Tandem Battle] (Numbers are given to indicate Top 10 finish)
Black
Disqualified (DSQ) (Given to indicate that the driver has been stripped of their position through disqualification)
White
First Round (TAN) [Tansou OR Qualifying Single Runs]
Red
Did not qualify (DNQ)
When driver's position are highlighted in blue, this indicates either the driver earned 100pt or 100pt tansou (solo run) bonus has been awarded, with the latter being in use for Pre-2005.
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