From a 1980 group of Miura owners fighting over spare parts to the 2024 GT300 title, JLOC has raced Lamborghinis in Japan for more than three decades.
JLOC is the Japan Lamborghini Owners' Club, whose members formed Team JLOC, a Super GT team that first raced in 1994. The team moved to GT300 in 2006 and won its first GT300 title in 2024 with four race wins.
JLOC is the Japan Lamborghini Owners' Club, a group of Lamborghini owners in Japan whose members formed Team JLOC. The team first entered Super GT in 1994, moved to the GT300 class in 2006, and won the GT300 championship in 2024 with Takashi Kogure and Yuya Motojima.
Why was the Lamborghini owners' club founded?
The club began in 1980, when a group of Lamborghini Miura owners struggled to get spare parts and proper maintenance for their cars. That first group worked out of the Kansai region and dissolved a few years later. It was reformed in 1987 at Lamborghini's request, and Isao Noritake, who had been part of the original club, was elected chairman.
Seventeen members attended the first meeting of the reformed club in 1988, held at Sanza Villa beside Lake Hamana. By 2000 the membership had passed 100. The 1988 meeting also inspired the team's use of the number 88 as its main race number.
A club founded over spare parts became a Super GT team that carried Lamborghini into GT300 across three generations of cars.
How did Team JLOC start racing in Super GT?
In the early 1990s club member Teruaki Terai wanted to race without a car or sponsor. In 1993 he bought a fire-damaged Lamborghini Countach 25th Anniversary, planning to convert it for the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship. Masahiko Mearashi helped plan the project, which was still unfinished by spring 1994.
The team entered the 1994 season as KEN WOLF with Terai Engineering after the organisers asked it to race when they heard of its plans. Art Sports supplied a road-going Countach, which was kept largely stock because time was short. The car received changes to its bodywork, suspension and engine. Takao Wada and Satoshi Ikezawa drove it, Noritake served as team manager, and Rain-X sponsored the car.
The Countach finished only two of its five races, but an eighth place at the second round in Sendai earned points, and that was enough to show the club could compete.
What were the Diablo years like?
In 1995 JLOC asked Lamborghini for a homologation Diablo for JGTC. Three Diablo Jota cars were produced, two for racing and one for the road. The Jota raced in all but one round without scoring points, with best results of 13th at Sendai and Fuji. Terai died from cancer that August, and the Jota ran again in 1996 without points.
Lamborghini then hired Signes Advanced Technologies to develop the Diablo GT-1 Stradale, a racing version intended for the GT1 class at Le Mans. Financial trouble ended that project after two cars had been built. JLOC bought one of them for the 1997 JGTC season and signed Hisashi Wada to replace Ikezawa.
Why did a JLOC car appear in Gran Turismo?
The 2000 version of the Diablo GT-1 was the first Lamborghini to appear in the Gran Turismo series. Sony Computer Entertainment, which lacked official Lamborghini rights at the time, paid JLOC to license the car for Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec. Lamborghini later asked that the car appear only in the Japanese version of the game.
The car reappeared only with Gran Turismo 5, which followed the 2009 PlayStation Portable title in which Lamborghini first appeared as a fully licensed brand. The licensing episode is one of the more unusual footnotes in the team's history.
How did the team move from the GT500 class to GT300?
JLOC redeveloped the Diablo GT-1 as the Diablo JGT-1 for 2001, with a reworked chassis and suspension. The car raced for three seasons but struggled against factory-backed GT500 entries. In 2004 the team switched to a Murcielago R-GT, which it labelled RG-1, but a shortage of spare parts meant the old Diablo ran at the fourth round at Tokachi.
When JGTC was rebranded as Super GT in 2005, JLOC homologated the R-GT for GT300 regulations and began racing in that class. It made the full switch in 2006 and expanded to two cars.
How did the GT300 team grow between 2006 and 2016?
In 2006 the team ran two Murcielago RG-1 entries. The number 88 car, driven by Marco Apicella and Yasutaka Hinoi, won the season opener at Suzuka, giving the Murcielago its first win in international competition. The same car took pole at Sportsland Sugo, and the pairing ended the season eleventh in GT300. The number 87 car finished 19th.
The team grew to four cars in 2007 by adding two self-developed Gallardo RG-3s to the Murcielago entries. In 2008 it dropped back to three, with one Murcielago phased out, and the RG-1 was retired at the end of 2009. The 2010 season brought the best result to that point, when Koji Yamanishi and Yuhi Sekiguchi finished ninth in GT300 after a podium, a pole position and five points finishes.
In 2012 the team returned to four cars after buying two Gallardos built to FIA GT3 specification. Orido and Yogo finished eighth in the standings, the highest-placed team without a race win that year. By 2013 all three cars were GT3-specification Gallardos, and in 2014 the team ran two cars and won at Sugo with Orido and Takayuki Aoki.
| Season | Lead car and drivers | Championship result |
|---|---|---|
| 2006 | No. 88 Murcielago RG-1 | 11th in GT300, with a season-opening win at Suzuka |
| 2010 | No. 86 Gallardo RG-3 | 9th in GT300, one podium and one pole |
| 2012 | Gallardo GT3, Orido and Yogo | 8th, highest team without a race win |
| 2016 | No. 88 Huracan GT3, Orido and Hiramine | 11th after six top-10 finishes |
| After 2018 | No. 88 Huracan GT3, Kogure and Motojima | 7th with 36.5 points and two podiums |
| 2023 | No. 88 Huracan GT3 Evo 2, Kogure and Motojima | Tied best finish of 7th, with a win at Motegi |
| 2024 | No. 88 Huracan, Kogure and Motojima | GT300 champions with four race wins |
What happened in the Huracan years?
JLOC switched to the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 in 2016. The number 88 car of Orido and Kazuki Hiramine finished 11th after six top-10 finishes. Orido and Hiramine then finished 10th in 2017, and both JLOC cars stood on the podium at the Suzuka 1000km.
Orido left after 2017, and Lamborghini factory driver Marco Mapelli took his seat in 2018. The team scored two poles that year, but its cars finished 10th and 11th. Mapelli then returned to Europe, and Takashi Kogure, who had been released from a Honda GT500 factory seat, joined Yuya Motojima in the number 88 car the following year.
Kogure and Motojima delivered the team's best championship finish to that point, seventh with 36.5 points and two podium finishes. The number 87 car, driven mainly by Tsubasa Takahashi and Andre Couto, finished eighth overall, with a Fuji victory along the way.
The 2020 season was harder. The pandemic disrupted the planned driver line-up, and the team scored only three points finishes, with Kogure and Motojima best of the JLOC cars in 13th. In 2021 the pair were back in the points more often and ended eighth, with one podium and five points finishes.
Kogure and Motojima finished 13th in the 2022 drivers' standings, with five top-10 results. Matsuura and Sakaguchi enjoyed a better year, taking the team's lone podium at Motegi and finishing 15th. The team also played a decisive role in the title race, as late overtakes at Motegi, including a last-lap move by Kogure, let Kondo Racing take the GT300 title after its Nissan lost a wheel.
In 2023 the team ran Huracan GT3 Evo cars, upgrading the number 88 car to Evo 2 specification before Round 4 at Fuji. Kogure and Motojima tied the team's best championship finish of seventh, winning the last round at Motegi.
What did the 2024 GT300 title mean for the team?
JLOC won its first GT300 championship in 2024, with Kogure and Motojima scoring four race wins. That tally was more than any GT300 squad had recorded since Taisan Jr. won five in 1998, and it gave the club its clearest success in Super GT.
The title was earned by a team that began as a group of owners and grew into a full racing operation over three decades. Shinnosuke Yamada, Matsuura and Sakaguchi were among the drivers who shared the number 87 car during the rebuilding years, while Kogure and Motojima carried the main effort. Its drivers, mechanics and manufacturer support had to keep pace with three generations of Lamborghini machinery.
What was JLOC's record at Le Mans?
JLOC made four attempts at the 24 Hours of Le Mans between 2006 and 2010 and never received manufacturer support. Its cars completed no classified finish, and the project struggled to match the competition. The team's best run came in 2006, when it completed 283 laps before stopping with three hours left.
The 2007 entry lost its first Murcielago RG-1LM in a qualifying crash at the first Mulsanne chicane, forcing the team to run a standard R-GT after the Automobile Club de l'Ouest allowed a replacement. The car retired after one lap with a broken driveshaft. In 2009 the team failed to qualify and parked its car after a single lap, and in 2010 an entry earned by winning the 2009 Okayama 1000km ended after 138 laps with punctures and transmission problems.
In a 2022 interview with Motorsport.com, team principal Isao Noritake said the Le Mans effort struggled because Audi lost interest in the Murcielago R-GT project, leaving JLOC to compete alone as Lamborghini's only representative at the race.
What is the legacy of JLOC?
For Lamborghini enthusiasts, the team is a reminder that the brand's racing presence in Japan grew out of owners who wanted their cars to compete. The factory's own projects, such as the Diablo GT-1 with Signes Advanced Technologies, did not always reach the track, and the club's cars often carried the programme forward.
JLOC's legacy is the way it turned an owners' club into a competitive racing team. Its work with the Lamborghini models kept the brand in Super GT's GT300 class across three generations of cars, from the Murcielago to the Gallardo and Huracan.
The team's place in the Gran Turismo story and its three decades of Super GT entries give it a distinctive profile among Japanese racing teams, even if its Le Mans record stayed largely unrewarded.
