This early R32 GT-R is completely original as Nissan intended and sports just 61,000 miles from new
The car that was dubbed Godzilla needs no introduction. The Nissan Skyline has a legacy spanning five decades, yet most don’t know that Nissan weren’t the original designers of the now cult classic.
A company called Prince came up with the namesake, and Nissan was so impressed they bought the company and rebranded it as a Nissan. Today, however, we’re not here to talk about the once luxury sedan, we’re here to show you the JDM explosion of the nineties.
Back in the late eighties, Japanese car makers ended up constructing a gentleman's agreement that prevented them from offering cars with more than 280 horsepower. It was a bid to prevent legislation from trapping car makers into a decade of city boxes with limited power.
In 2019, however, everyone and their dog knows that this was just an internal competition for the guys in Japan. Enter Godzilla. The R32 Skyline GT-R was fitted with one of the world’s most revered power plants, the RB26. Despite this agreement to limit power, car makers instead decided to simply print 276 horsepower in brochures to keep the competition off the scent, and in doing so developed some of the most over engineered engines the world has ever seen.
Forged internals and turbos were common place for rivals in Japan, and the Nissan was no different. Despite its quoted power output, even today stock R32s that are approaching their 30th birthday will display 320 horsepower on a dyno. That’s cool.
Not only were the engines over engineered, but the whole car was subject to some technological wizardry that pushed the boundaries of engineering, one such feature was the four wheel steering that came as standard on the GT-R version along with four wheel drive. The lesser known GT-S model, whilst worth slightly less, is typically more popular with modders and drifters thanks to the rear wheel drive output.
Once the car community caught onto how starved these motors were from their potential, people began to do some crazy things. Power increases to numbers exceeding 550 horsepower were common on completely stock motors, and reliably too. With some more cash thrown at them, Bugatti Veyron beating figures are a common sight today.
As a result, unmolested examples are now insanely hard to find, yet the car featured here from Toprank Motorworks, Inc, is one of those diamonds in the rough. With Toyota Supras now exceeding six figures on the collector car market, this R32 surely has some serious investment potential.
With just 61,000 miles on the odometer the vendor confirms its originality, which is immediately obvious upon closer inspection of the photos. Where bucket seats and flashy steering wheels are typically seen, there is a rare abundance of OEM goodness.
For more information on this R32 GT-R visit the Motorious classifieds.
