It might not smoke Corvettes, but it has surprising power…
There aren’t many high-performance Japanese cars from the 1970s, but this 1973 Nissan Skyline helps buck the trend. While it looks fairly stock and harmless, this little sedan hides an SR20 Turbo swap for quite the uplift in power. Sure, it might not be the most powerful JDM on the road, but the combination of classic looks and entertaining performance makes it a charmer.
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Instead of an inline-six like you’d see on a modern Skyline, this car is packing a solid but admittedly smaller punch with an inline-four engine. Doing an inline-six swap wouldn’t have been possible, as the owner explains, because the ’73 Skyline is a short nose and simply lacks the space under the hood. Had it been a factory GT-R it would’ve had a longer nose and the inline-six.
Still, the SR20 is a respectable and very tunable engine, as Nissan S13 and S14 owners know. For now the engine is stock, but the owner says there are plans to swap out the intake and other components to squeeze out more performance. Just like many builds, this one is constantly evolving. While it hasn’t been put on a dyno, the owner believes this setup is pushing about 300-horsepower, not a bad figure for something so lightweight.
Paired up to the engine is the factory transmission for the SR20, a 5-speed manual. You’ll note the side mirror housings, the seats, and some interior trim are made of carbon fiber, so plenty of more modern aesthetics have been added. It wears an interesting color that the owner says was “inspired” by the R34’s Millennium Jade limited edition paint, a type of holy grail for the Nismo faithful. It’s not quite the same hue, but we get why that was used as a guide.
Check out the video to see this car in more detail.
