The car was styled by Noriyuki Nishida and engineered by Kikuo Kaira, known for his work on the Tommykaira ZZ.

Autobacs Racing Team Aguri entered the Garaiya into the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship in 2003, replacing their previous Toyota MR-S which had been competing since 2000; veteran drivers Morio Nitta and Shinichi Takagi, the drivers of the team's previous MR-S race car for the last three seasons, were retained to drive the Garaiya.

The car's powerplant was a Mid West Racing-tuned Nissan SR20DET 2.0 L turbocharged I4[10] and ran using BF Goodrich tyres.

ARTA continued their Garaiya program for 2004, this time switching out the SR20DET for an Ogura-tuned 3.5 L VQ35DE V6 from the Nissan Fairlady Z for increased power.

[8] This increase in power solved the car's straight line speed issues and resulted in the Garaiya's first win at the Hokkaido Gran GT Championship in July 2004; the Garaiya finished second in the team's championship, losing to the M-Tec Honda NSX by a single point.

Starting from this year, the Garaiya began to be used in corporate commercials for ARTA,[11] as well as appearing in various television shows and video games.

To commemorate ARTA's 10th anniversary, the GT300 team was reopened, with Nitta and Takagi called back to drive the Garaiya.

Changes to the Super GT rule structure were enacted in 2012 to take effect the next season; this would lead to the phasing out of JAF-GT Category C and D vehicles from competition, categories spanning prototype sports cars based on modified sports cars with few or no road-going counterparts.