Despite ending production more than 20 years ago, the R34 Skyline GT-R is still highly desirable – both inside and outside the car community. I have many opinions regarding the hype around these cars and the quite frankly ridiculous glazing, but I won’t talk about that because how many stock R34 GT-Rs do you see outside of Gran Turismo? Not many I assume.
The example that I’m featuring in this post honestly looks like it’s come straight out of Gran Turismo. In fact if you go to the Nissan dealer in Gran Turismo 7 right now, you will find an R34 Skyline GT-R almost identical to this one. Bayside Blue is the default colour and has been ever since the ’02 V Spec II Nur version showed up in Gran Turismo 4. Yes, that’s the full name of the car soo many of us know and love.
As a standard unit, the RB26DETT produces “276” HP but we know damn well the stock figure is more like 330HP, which does sound rather modest in a world where a Corvette ZR-1X produces over 1200 HP from factory. Still, there’s absolutely no reason to slag this thing off because numbers aren’t everything. What matters is the feeling you get behind the wheel and I have it on good authority that they’re tight right out of the box. This is when Nissan actually cared about their customers.
I think the greatest part of this car is the design. It’s confident, a little bit boy racer but no means fussy with lines that lead to nowhere. There’s structure in each of the forms and none of it feels superfluous or unecessary. Compared to something like the 350Z, this car seems far more chiseled and muscular. Once the wick is turned up, the testosterone really starts flowing to the lower extremeties.
This car never aimed to break any rules or do anything controversial – it aimed to set a standard and tell the Europeans that they weren’t going to have it all their own way. Nissan’s tactics, and indeed Japans, was to build a vehicle that wasn’t the most luxurious with a fantastic chassis, plenty of electronic tech and an overbuilt engine that had the ability to produce an extra 200 HP without needing to completely tear it down. Many, many people have done this but you don’t have to. Sometimes less is more.
As you can probably tell at this point, the R34 GT-R is indeed one of my favourite cars because it nails soo many components. No, it’s not just for men as I’m sure some females would get a kick out of driving this, but that would be a very small percentage. For many men of my generation and perhaps a little older, this car was and still is of great inspiration. No matter how it was introduced to you, the mark this car has left on soo many is impossible to deny. That is what this impeccable example embodies.
DevMacCars 