For Claude John, a day at the races lead to a long-term affair with a hero car.
Claude John’s 1987 Nissan GTS-R Skyline
I imported this car about seven years ago but it stayed in storage for a few years before I started taking it out. It’s in 100 per cent stock condition; in fact the only thing I’ve done is painted it.
They only came in one colour, which is called Bluish Black, you don’t need much of an imagination to see why they called it that.
When I was a kid I’d go to the races and watch Mark Skaife and Jim Richards battle it out in these Nissans. That’s what made me fall in love with them, especially the GTS-R. I knew from that moment that one day I had to own one, and here we are.
It’s a Group A Homologation car. They made the GTS-R model to race as a touring car and they had to make at least 500 production units to qualify. So as you’d expect, it’s got a few goodies over the standard HR31s.
It’s got a bigger turbo, a different spoiler, a big front-mount intercooler, bespoke interior bits and a fair few more performance parts over its siblings. I don’t have any big plans for the car. I just want to keep it as original as possible given that Nissan only made 800 of them so they’re getting pretty rare.
I’m quite fussy about the car, but I still take it out a fair bit. I probably take it to around 20 events a year, and go on cruises with the family regularly. The whole purpose of the car is to drive, so I don’t see the point in keeping it garaged all its life.