![]() ![]() Sakurai-san had led the development of a Prince racecar know as the R380. To achieve this, Nissan turned to a man named Shinichiro Sakurai. Build a vehicle that was at home on both the city streets of Saitama, and at Suzuka race circuit. Nicknamed ‘Hakosuka’, or ‘Boxy Skyline’ in English, a special high-performance variant of the car – known as the 2000 GT-R – arrived in 1969. In the past it had used earlier Skyline models to take on Porsche – and win! Happily, that tradition of sporting prowess trickled through to the reborn Nissan-branded Skyline when it debuted in the late sixties. The Prince motor company was a regular entrant into Japan’s most prestigious races. However, the Skyline wasn’t just any old inherited family saloon. It then slapped a Nissan badge on its newly prepared successor. Following a merger with fellow Japanese car marque Prince, Nissan nabbed Prince’s Skyline sedan model. The ‘Hakosuka’ is where the Nissan GT-R story begins. So, why are these cars so revered? Let’s take a quick tour through history to find out. Nowadays though, that sedan DNA is firmly a thing of the past the R35 GT-R being its own stand-alone supercar rival. The 1989 R32-gen car picked up where its Hakosuka and Kenmeri ancestors left off, offering sports car levels of performance in a package derived from a humble sedan. Of course, over the years, plenty about the model has changed. ![]() Each iteration of the Skyline GT-R and subsequent Nissan GT-R R35 can claim to be one of the best performance cars to come out of Japan, whether you leave it stock, or not. Known for their clever all-wheel drive systems and highly tunable engines, they’re one of the most popular vehicles to modify, and for good reason. For many people, the Nissan Skyline GT-R is the ultimate JDM model, and that status brings a suitably hefty price tag with it. Throw in a top speed of more than 190 mph, a rear bias for the AWD setup that kept 90% of engine torque flowing to the back axles until called upon to improve traction at the front, and enormous (for the era) 15-inch Brembo brakes, and the Nissan was capable of embarrassing more expensive badges in a road course as well as a drag strip.The reason why is a simple case of supply and demand. Thanks to a double-secret launch control system (which led to an early fight with Nissan over voided warranties and broken gearboxes, resolved by an eventual software update), the car touched 60 mph in a scant 3.2 seconds.Īt the time, a number like that was the exclusive province of European exotica costing double the GT-R’s roughly $70,000 asking price. Rated at 480 horsepower and 430 lb-ft of torque, it fed that output through a six-speed dual-clutch automated manual transmission to all four wheels. ![]() ![]() Indeed, it appeared as though the Nissan’s extra weight had almost no impact on its startling straight-line speed, a testament to the automaker’s engineers and their ability to fully harness the fury of the car’s 3.8-liter twin-turbo VR38DETT V6 engine. Its reputation continues to be strong on the secondhand market, where the ersatz-Skyline competes hard against models like the Porsche 911 Turbo and the Ferrari 458 on the track and the street. It wasn’t until the late 2000s that Nissan deigned to import a version of the coupe, nicknamed “Godzilla,” to the United States, dropping the Skyline name from the badge and labeling it simply “GT-R.” When it arrived, the R35 generation of the venerable vehicle instantly grabbed the attention of not just longtime Nissan fans, but also legions of drivers who were shocked by what appeared to be a modern-day supercar featuring ahead-of-its-time tech, but crucially bearing a sub-six-figure price tag.Īlthough the R35’s window sticker would rise over the course of its lifespan, it remained an astounding value proposition for those who craved sledgehammer acceleration and dyno-popping power above all else. The sports car was a trans-Pacific lure into a world where twin turbochargers, all-wheel drive and incredible aftermarket support churned out one of the most exciting Japanese market vehicles ever built. For decades the Nissan Skyline GT-R represented forbidden fruit to American high-performance enthusiasts. ![]()
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