“GT-R.” Three letters that reign supreme over the streets of Japan. The Nissan GT-R and Skyline GT-R, nicknamed “Godzilla,” are high-performance sports cars created for one sole purpose; to beat cars double its price, on the straights and on the track. This car would be known for years as the pinnacle of Japanese auto engineering, and still is considered to this day. Ever since its debut in 1969, the GT-R has captivated the minds of car enthusiasts alike, young and old. So how did such a vehicle come to be, and why do people covet the car to such a degree?
The genesis of the Skyline was actually never brought up by Nissan. Instead, it was a luxury car built by the independent Prince Motor Company, focused on creating electric cars after World War 2. However, tides turned as the Japanese economy began to grow after the war, and now Shinichiro Sakurai, an engineer in the Prince Motor Company, was then tasked with creating a luxury car to compete with German and American cars.
In 1966, the Prince Motor Company was acquired by Nissan, and now the vehicle was sold as the Nissan Skyline. However, the company still worked almost independently from Nissan up until 2002.
Sakurai was known for being a perfectionist, training new car designers of the company by making them draw nothing but straight lines on a paper from dawn to dusk for weeks. After seeing Formula 1 cars in Europe, Sakurai was told to create a race car for Prince, so he adapted the Skyline chassis for racing and created the Skyline 2000 GT. However, he knew that it could be better than it was, so he installed the detuned race engine from the Prince R380 Race Car. This engine was made solely to beat Porsche in the Japan Grand Prix, so fitting this big engine into a sedan gave it a ton of power while also making it handle extremely well, a formula that made it astonishing on the track.They named it the Skyline Gran Turismo Racing, or GT-R for short.
After he had fallen ill, Sakurai gave Nagamori Ito, one of his students, the helm of the next generation Skyline. Unfortunately, the R31 Skyline wasn’t as well received, and feeling that he had disappointed his teacher, Ito focused on working hard on making the next platform the perfect Group A race car.
Behold, the release of the 1989 Skyline GT-R, known in the car community as the R32. This car featured some breaking edge technology. It had twin turbos, a steering system known as ATTESA-ETS. This traction system allowed for the car to have 4 wheel steering. This allowed the car to have extreme nimbleness at both high and low speeds. With a retail price of around 50,000 US dollars in today's money, this car was an absolute bargain, outperforming Porches of the time with nothing but a small tune and stock internals. While it was listed to have a horsepower rating of 276, it actually had significantly more power. This was due to a “gentlemen's agreement” between all the automakers of Japan to limit the power of their luxury cars to 276 horsepower. The companies were worried that a “power war” would occur between them for who would have the most powerful car, causing deaths to occur due to too much power.
Once the R32 was entered in the Japanese Touring Car Group A Series, it won every single race in the series. It was iconic, with its blue Calsonic livery, and has become a staple of Japanese Racing history.
The release of the R33 GT-R in 1995 gradually improved on everything the R32 was. With a longer, more aerodynamic body and an enhanced all-wheel drive system to help with distributing power more efficiently, this car was a perfect improvement. When it was tested on the Nurburgring, it was the first sports coupe to run a lap under 8 minutes. Everything about it seemed like a great new model, but enthusiasts wanted more. There was still room to improve, and improve the Skyline did.
In 1999, the R34 Skyline GT-R was focused on aerodynamics, making sure as much of the car was as cool and as aerodynamic as possible. This didn’t mean making the car smoother though. In fact, the R34 GT-R was quite boxy in comparison to the previous GT-Rs, but in this case, was still more aerodynamic, having a front end lift coefficient of 0.1.
The current gen R35 GT-R released in 2007 was designed to be its own specific platform, not pertaining to the Skyline platform any more. This vehicle was designed solely to be a sports car and nothing less. Instead of the previous inline 6 design of the RB26, the VR38DETT was a V6 twin turbo engine made entirely of aluminium, making the engine significantly lighter and better at dissipating heat. Each engine was made by hand, and the new ATTESSA system aimed at improving rear grip and dual clutch transmission made the GT-R go from 0-100 kph in just 3.2 seconds.
This iteration was just as legendary as the Skylines before it, with the Nismo GT500 competing in the Super GT league, and being so dominant it was given a weight penalty of 100kg to make the championship more fair, and it still won.
The GT-R is one of the first cars that come to mind when one thinks of a “fast car,” and it’s for a good reason. Every generation has delivered nothing but state-of-the-art technology fused with master craftsmanship in a way that can only be done by certain people. It’s no wonder that the GT-R is a staple in car culture, and in the world as a legend.