Hero all-wheel-drive
Nissan’s fifth-generation Skyline was living proof that years of development across a succession of models can produce some wildly effective cars.
Launched in 1999 the R34 series in GT-R form claimed a relatively modest 205kW, which complied with an industry ‘gentleman’s agreement’ of the day. In fact they generally produced more like 240-250kW, before tuners got their hands on them.
The 2.6lt twin-turbo straight six in the GT-R was ripe for further development and there is ample knowledge out there to produce something more feisty without breaking anything. That lot feeds through a six-speed manual transmission.
However it was really the handling of the all-wheel-drive R34 chassis that was the highlight. It was widely regarded as one of the best-handling cars of its time, regardless of price.
Of course these cars, aka Godzillas, are very much in demand as future classics, with good ones and rare homolgation variants sometimes fetching spectacular prices.
Grays has one up for auction at the moment: a 1999 model showing 108,000km on the odo. Bidding is sitting on $146,000 with a little over a day to go.
Unique Cars auction results listing