The Nissan Skyline
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So, where to start? Maybe the first place is just
what the Skyline is; and that is (in my completely
unbiased opinion) the
very
finest car around. It has a
very long
history
,
but I'm going to focus mainly on the
R32 (1989-1993)
, and
R33 (1993-1998)
ranges, with possibly a little bit on the
R34 (1998 on).
I got interested in Skylines (and cars in general) completely by accident really. I used to have a little 1.3 litre 1984 Nissan Pulsar 5 door hatch, which I loved. Unfortunately, WOFs (Warrant Of Fitness - every 6 months) began to get more and more expensive, as things started being not right with it (except the engine, which just kept on going, despite not very many services at all - bad Raf). After I'd had it for about 6 years (and it was 15 years old), I went for a WOF, and the car needed $150 of work done. Six months later it cost about $250, and then six months later it needed $350. 8( Very unhappy Raf decided he needed to get another car instead of a WOF. I wanted another Nissan, but other than that I knew nothing at all. I ended up with an R32 GTS sedan (which unfortunately was an auto-tragic, but I got used to that - it has it's good points), and absolutely love it. It was the first 2.0 litre car I'd driven, and had much more go than my old Pulsar. It was also the first RWD car I had driven, and I think that contributed to my developing fascination with it, and then with Skylines in general, and even to getting interested in cars. The ironic thing is that when I took the Skyline for its first WOF, it failed for a hole in the muffler: $320 later...
Anyway, the car had a pretty good go at teaching me how to catch the tail when it wants to overtake the nose - a couple of weeks after I got it - but for the most part it was (and is) a lovely drive. Then I got a drive in a GTSt. Remember, I had never driven a turbo car ever. Ever ever. So I head down to the Northwestern, and on I go. Being careful and good at this point, and it's just driving like my car. Then there's some clear motorway, so the 'box goes in third and the boot goes in and Raf goes....................... quickly down the road. Time seemed to slow down 8). There was this tiny fraction of a second after I put my foot down where nothing much happened, then for another fraction of a second there was the best noise: whirrrrrrrrrp, as the turbo spooled up, and then the bloody thing just flew down the motorway. I had the biggest grin on my face, and just kept doing it again and again to feel that shove, and hear that "whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp". 8) So I decided I wanted a GTSt, but when I tried to find information about it, it was pretty hard. So I decided to put together as much as I could, and stick it up here.
Then my wife got a 1995 FTO. It was just soooo new inside, that I wanted a newer car than mine, and seeing as the R32 only went up until 1993, and was exactly like my car inside, I knew I wasn't going to get that new feel, unless I went for the R33. Since making that decision, I've fallen more for the R33 coupe (still don't like the sedan), which is probably a good thing. I don't particularly like the earlier R33s, but the spec 2 and 3 (1996, and 1997-8) are things of great beauty. Before my car bit the dust (as I describe on the main page), I had a day of play, and I can report it is absolutely awesome to drive. The extra 500cc, and the higher compression over the R32, combined with the variable cam timing, add up to a more seamless, less obvious, power delivery than the R32 GTSt. It just goes, from whatever speed in whatever gear, as soon as you put your foot down. Ok, sure you can feel the turbo, but it's just less of an obvious SLAM! in the back.
Then out comes the R34. Yum yum yum! That's a beautiful car. It won't be mine for quite a long while though. Never mind. I probably won't bother with putting too much info about this beast up here, as Nissan NZ are selling it new, so it can be checked out at Nissan NZ's website , with quite a lot of information.
Then the R35 came out, but it's actually called the V35; and I'm not
even going to soil my website by putting a picture up. They
are ugly ugly things, with non-turbo V6 engines! I'm not at all
happy. They don't even have the round "afterburner"
tail-lights! Supposedly the next generation GTR may be
based on the V35 Skyline, though it won't be a Skyline itself.
The same pictures are knocking around on the internet purporting to
be the new GTR, as were supposed to be the R35 (now V35) Skyline -
see below.
| Hands up who thinks this picture is a fake? I've seen this exact picture in a different colour, with a different background, so I for one don't believe it. Also, look at the bonnet: it's not shiny like the body of the car. See how the body from the bottom of the windows has been deformed in a painting program, by stretching the very front point of the front window downwards and forwards. Also check out the headlights: if you look really closely (you might need to save the pic to your PC, load it in an image viewer, and zoom in a bit, so I've left the pic full size), you can see the cut lines around the top of the headlight cluster (especially on the right - that is: the right of the car; the *left* of the picture). |
And as for the engine... People are saying twin turbo, N/A, or even supercharged!! And I've heard 2.5 litre, 3 litre, 3.5 litre, 4.1 litre, V6, and V8. Now it can't be all of those. I have heard that the toss-up is between a larger-capacity inline 6 and a V6 - either being twin turbo. I still think it would lose something if it went to a V6 - there's just something very special about an inline 6 cylinder engine.