A Nissan Skyline R34 GTR sold 3 months ago
at auction for $359,000. In 2013, you could get the same car for $50,000. So how did a niche Japanese sports car that
was already expensive, go from being under MSRP to 7x over MSRP in less than a decade? All while being illegal to even own in the
United States? Let’s talk about that. The GTR story starts in the 1960s. A small Japanese carmaker by the name of Prince
Motor Company made luxury automobiles for the Japanese market. Their most famous models, a luxo-cruiser called
the Gloria, and a performance model called the Skyline. Prince loved to race cars, so the Skyline
was designed with competition in mind. And while it wasn’t the fastest car on track,
it was quick enough to get the Porsche drivers a little nervous at the Japanese Grand Prix. In 1966, Nissan, one of the dominant players
in the Japanese car world, was struggling to keep up with the local automotive juggernaut
at the time, Toyota. And so, in an effort to gain manufacturing
strength and technologies, they hammered out a merger deal with Prince Motor Company, and
began selling Prince cars at their own Nissan Prince dealerships. This was a rocky transition at first, but
eventually, things began to smooth out. Market share began to grow, and to keep a
singular brand identity, Nissan began slowly phasing out the Prince name in favor of just
Nissan. In 1969, Nissan decided to take the Prince
Skyline and make a hotted-up version that gave consumers a taste of the Skylines racing
history. What they came out with was the PGC10 Nissan
Skyline Gran Turismo Racing, or GTR. This was a 4 door Skyline with a 2.0-liter
dual overhead cam 6 cylinder putting out 160hp.
Advertised alongside the Nissan R380 racecar,
this Skyline meant business, and the Japanese public were impressed by the motorsports derived
drivetrain and chassis. But, a 4 door sedan? Uh-uh, this sort of performance needed to
be in something with 2 doors. So in 1971, Nissan gave the world the KPGC10
Skyline GTR Coupe. A meaner, smaller, version of the same racy
and Angular GTR that preceded it. This generation Skyline actually became known
for its uniquely boxy styling, and as a result was nicknamed the Hakosuka. With Hako in Japanese meaning Box, and Suka
being an abbreviation of Sukairain, the Japanese pronunciation of Skyline. With the success of the Hakosuka, Nissan was
ready to bring the GTR into the 70s, so in 1973 they released the KPGC110 Skyline GTR. This Skyline was an evolution of the previous
GTR, with more modern styling and bigger disc brakes, but otherwise powered by the same
drivetrain. It became known as the Kenmeri thanks to a
Japanese ad campaign featuring a cute western couple named Ken and Mary traveling through
the Hokkaido countryside in their baby blue Skyline. The Skyline was slowly becoming a real part
of pop culture, and the growing GTR nameplate was a clear indicator to the world that Nissan’s
motorsports division was thriving and hungry. And then after not even 1 year on the market,
Nissan killed it. Well, I say Nissan, but it wasn’t them,
it was the oil crisis. The 1970s Oil Crisis was a massive blow to
performance cars around the planet, and Nissan wasn’t spared. After making only 197 KPGC110 Skyline GTRs,
Nissan ended production, and retired the GTR name. Nissan continued to make the Skyline as a
more economy focused mid-sized sedan and coupe with the C210 Skyline. And after that, through the 1980s, Nissan
made the R30 Skyline and then the R31 Skyline, which got some souped up versions with the
RS and GTS-R versions respectively. These cars did alright on the track as well,
with touring car racing quickly becoming Nissan’s motorsports of choice in the 80s. But the magic just wasn’t there, and Nissan
was always left with a feeling like they were missing that special motorsports heritage
in their lineup that was so quickly snatched away in 1973. So in 1989, Nissan brought the GTR back. The
Skyline GTR EBNR32, or R32 for short, debuted in 1989 and was designed by Chief Engineer
Naganori Ito specifically to dominate Group A Racing. Their target? The Porsche 959. To pull off this feat they needed serious
race derived engineering, and so this Skyline came equipped with the now-famous RB26-DETT. A 2.6L Twin Turbo Inline 6 making “276hp”
which sent power to not just the rear wheels, but also the front wheels, through a high
tech All Wheel Drive system called ATTESA E-TS. It also had 4-wheel steering through Nissan’s
Super HICAS system, which worked in conjunction with ATTESA to give the GTR grip in nearly
any situation. Nissan also homologated specific Group A tweaks
in a special road going R32 GTR called the Nismo. Nismo was an abbreviation of Nissan Motorsports,
and this special 500-unit run of the Skyline was definitely all about motorsports. It was about 70lbs lighter thanks to an ABS
delete, and had upgraded turbos, aero, and tires. All to make it more competitive in Group A. Every piece of tech in this car was developed
on the circuit, and it showed. The R32 dominated Japanese touring car racing
like no car before it, winning every single one of the 29 debut races it entered, and
taking the Japan Touring Car Championship in 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1993. It was such a monster on the racetrack that
it earned the title of Japan’s other famous fire-breathing monster. Godzilla. I should mention though, that despite the
international recognition that the GTR was getting, Godzilla was exclusive to Japan. Nissan felt as though they didn’t need to
expand the niche Skyline models to their global lineup, and so, the people of the west could
do nothing but read about the GTR in magazines and see it dominate in Touring car racing. In 1991 Nissan released the Skyline GTR N1,
which was another homologation special, this time for Group N racing in Japan. The N1 had an upgraded motor, radio and AC
delete, and even had thinner paint to keep the weight as low as possible. You might be noticing a trend here. Nissan was not shy about making special, limited
editions of the GTR, with the N1 models making up just a few hundred of total production. And this limited edition trend is important
to why prices today are so unbelievably high. But more on that later. In 1993, Nissan once again brought us a special
GTR. This one was called the Victory Spec, or V-Spec
for short, and was made to celebrate Nissan’s utter dominance in both Group A and Group
N Racing. The V-Spec retuned the ATTESA All-wheel-drive
system, and added bigger brembo brakes. Nissan made 1400 of them. And then in 1994, yep you guessed it, Nissan
brought us another one, with the V-Spec II. This really just had wider tires compared
to the V-Spec, oh and of course a new V-Spec II badge. And They made just 1300 of these. So in the span of five years, Nissan made
a base GTR, a Nismo, an N1, a V-Spec, and a V-Spec II. 5 different versions of the GTR, which was
already a sub-model of the Skyline. Funny enough, Nissan was already selling the
next generation base model Skyline, the R33, when the V-Spec II R32 was released. But the GTR was so sought after that they
continued to sell the R32 version through 1994. In 1995, though, Nissan brought the GTR fully
into the 90s, with the E-BCNR33 Skyline GTR. This had basically the same drivetrain as
the R32 before it, but the body had grown in every measure, including a 200lb increase
in curb weight. Instead of a standard GTR and Nismo GTR, like
the R32, at launch the R33 could be bought as either a standard GTR or a V-Spec. The V-spec had different suspension, and an
upgraded ATESSA ETS Pro AWD system, which featured an Active LSD, something very uncommon
for the time. It was a little heavier than the standard
model, but it certainly didn’t show it, being 2 seconds faster around the Nurburgring
than the standard R33 GTR. And 23 seconds faster than the R32 GTR. Nissan also joined GT1 class racing, and so
with a new racing series came a new homologation requirement. So for that year, Nissan made one, just one,
R33 GTR LM street car. This car lives on display in Nissan’s headquarters,
so it can hardly be considered a road-going car, but, the next year, in 1996 Nissan decided
to make the GTR LM Limited, a 188-car run celebrating Nissan’s entry at the 24 hours
of Le Mans. Another special edition, but this one was
mostly an aesthetic upgrade from the standard R33. Not quite a legitimate motorsports monster
like the N1s and V-Specs of old. So the very next year, Nissan created the
NISMO 400R. It had a bored and stroked 2.8L RB26, called
the RBX-GT2, with fully built internals and bigger turbos making 400 horsepower. This was by every definition a motorsports
monster. It had a widebody kit, carbon hood and wing,
and Nismo forged wheels. It was Nissan’s most extreme production
R33, and even though they intended to make 100 of them, by the end of R33 production
in 1998, they had only created 44 examples. So then, another generation of Skyline capped
off with a limited run of insane low volume special editions. You can see why so many years on, there are
R33 Skylines that fetch eye-watering prices, thanks to their motorsports DNA and extreme
rarity. But, as the title suggests, the Skyline GTR
that would later go on to become absolutely unattainable, hadn’t even been made yet. In 1998, while Nissan was bringing us the
insane R33 NISMO 400R, they had already started selling the next gen, base-model, R34 Skyline. It debuted with the RB20 and RB25 NEO, a revised
version of the RB that was designed to be more fuel efficient and better for the planet. But let’s be honest, nobody cared about
the version that got better MPG. And so in 1999, Nissan released the fire-breathing
327hp R34 GTR. Of course it still had the ATESSA ETS all
wheel drive system, but this time driven through a 6-speed manual transmission from Getrag. The chassis was significantly upgraded as
well, with the footprint of the R34 being shrunk down from the R33, despite weighing
a little bit more. And at launch, like the R33 before it, you
could opt for the V-Spec model. Which came with the previous ATTESA ETS Pro
and active LSD, along with a new aero package including a carbon fibre rear diffuser. There was also a V-Spec N1, which was another
homologation special with radio and AC deletes, of which Nissan made only 38. All these upgrades on the R34 GTR could be
seen at work in JGTC, The Japan Grand Touring Car Championship, where the famous Pennzoil
Yellow R34 GTR won the 1999 championship, and subsequently became an icon in the Gran
Turismo video games. In 2000, Nissan replaced the V-Spec with the
V-Spec II, and it got stiffer suspension, larger rear brakes, and a carbon fiber hood. And In 2001, Nissan released an entirely new
Special edition. The M-Spec. The M-Spec, or Mizuno Spec, named after Kazutoshi
Mizuno, the Chief Engineer, was a slightly softer edge version of the hardcore V-Spec
GTR. It had electronic dampers, a full leather
interior and even heated seats. In 2002, the final year of the R34, Nissan
created the pinnacle of the GTR name. The V-Spec-II Nur and M-Spec Nur. These Nur versions, named after the famous
Nurburgring Nordschleife, had an upgraded engine and bigger turbos, along with various
gold accents around the car. They were created to celebrate the Skyline’s
Nurburgring records, with the R34 being the fastest skyline yet around the Green Hell,
and the fastest series production car at the time. Just 1003 Nurs were made. And so that was it, 3 years and numerous special
editions later, the R34 GTR was at the end of the line. Despite the apparent success of the GTR name,
the shakeup at Nissan following the merger with Renault meant that cars like the Skyline
needed to be reevaluated. The newly appointed CEO, Carlos Ghosn, was
tasked with making Nissan profitable, and one of the biggest moves of that plan was
to make Nissan more global. So the R34 Skyline was replaced by the V35
Skyline, a rebodied version of Nissans FM 350Z platform, and exported to worldwide markets
as the Infiniti G35. The motorsports bred GTR brand was retired
and the famous Godzilla was now officially dead. But the NISMO team still had some strength
left in them. And with the R34s dying breath, they produced
the ultimate road going R34 GTR. The Z-Tune. The Z-Tune concept was initially shown in
2002, but it wasn’t until 2003, a year after the R34 was discontinued, that NISMO was given
the approval to make the Z-Tune. But there was a problem, Nissan didn’t make
an R34 GTR anymore, so how was NISMO supposed to make a special edition version of it? Well, they decided to do what any of us would
do if we needed a GTR, buy a used one. NISMO bought 18 used GTR V-Specs, all with
under 29,000kms, and then completely stripped them down to be rebuilt from the ground up. They gave it a special 2.8l stroker RB called
the RB26 Z2, based off of the Le Mans racecar’s RB26 Z1, which put out 500hp. The chassis were seam welded and reinforced
with carbon fiber. Then sprayed in a special Z-Tune Silver, and
hand assembled. One customer however, managed to convince
NISMO to leave his car in the original Midnight Purple III, one of the GTRs iconic special
colors, making his a 1 of 1 from the original run. Needless to say, these cars were truly special,
even among an entire line of Skylines that were already special. A fitting send-off to the GTR name that spent
the last 24 years striking fear into the hearts of racing teams from both the east and the
west. By this point in time in the mid 2000s the
Skyline GTR had already become a legend around the planet. It was the Japanese supercar that the world
couldn’t have. Very seldom was a GTR exported to the west,
the most notable being a small 80-unit run of the R34 V-Spec to the UK, along with a
handful to a few other countries. Us Americans especially would look on in awe
at Japanese tuning shops and racing teams that were creating these world-dominating
Skyline builds. And then in 2003, Universal Studios decided
to put an R34 GTR in the hands of Paul Walker, in 2 Fast 2 Furious, and give the Skyline
even more reverence in the western tuning scene. The most frustrating part? There was just no way that we could get our
hands on them. The US has a strict 25 year import ban on
cars, with very few loopholes. And the few loopholes that did exist were
rendered useless, thanks to things like the MotorEx scandal, that put the Skyline squarely
in the crosshairs of the DOT, thanks to Hiro Nanahoshi and his merry band of miscreants. The only real legal way to get your hands
on a Skyline in America was to wait for its 25th birthday and import one from abroad. Fast forward to 2007, and Nissan showed the
world the Nissan GTR concept. Now separated from the Skyline name, the GTR
was a revival of the iconic Skyline GTR, but technically not a Skyline at all. The Skyline name still belonged to the V35
and the FM Platform, so the new GTR was just a GTR. And while technically, the new GTRs PM platform
is based off the V35’s FM platform, it still isn’t a Skyline according to Nissan. All this meant that the Nissan Skyline R34
GTR well and truly was the last of its kind. And that was especially true when you considered
their prices. The R34 GTR wasn’t a cheap car when new,
costing about 70 grand in today's money for a base model and over 80 thousand for an M-Spec
Nur. Depreciation on the R34 was fairly standard
fare, so by 2009 when the current gen GTR came out, average base model R34 GTRs were
selling for about 3-5 million Yen at auction, or about 40-50 thousand USD at the time. The most expensive sales were about 6-8 million
yen, or about 80-100,000 US, for V-Spec II Nurs and M-Spec Nurs. And over the next 5-6 years, that’s about
where they stayed. But in late 2015, things started to get a
little out of control. First a V-Spec II Nur sold for 9 million yen,
then an M-Spec Nur for 11 million. Now with the fluctuating Yen to USD exchange
rates, that was still only around 100,000 US dollars, so not too outlandish. Especially for just 2 cars. But by 2016, it wasn’t just 2 cars, Nur’s
were readily selling above 8 million yen. And in the summer of 2016, one V-Spec II Nur
just kept bidding, and bidding, and bidding up, until it reached the mind-boggling price
of 16 million yen. That was 160,000 US Dollars. At this point the Skyline market was officially
off to the races, and every version of R34 GTR saw at least a 30-50% price bump over
the course of a year, with the Limited edition Skylines leading the way. And considering how many special Skylines
there were, in such limited numbers, one might wonder if it was Nissan’s intention from
the beginning to create hype through the GTR’s rarity. By 2017, another V-Spec II Nur broke the record
again at 22 million yen, or just under 200,000 US Dollars. And the average skyline price up to about
6-7 million yen, nearly double where they were at in 2010. 2018 saw most of the limited edition models
selling above 10 million yen, with one notable exception. A white V-Spec II Nur with 10 miles, yes TEN
miles, sold at auction for 35.2 million yen. That was about 317 thousand US dollars. And as much as people said it was a freak
incident, a one off auction, it certainly added gasoline to the fire. -
And By the end of 2019, most Nur-spec GTRs were generally fetching close to 20 million. At this point, the speculation for the price
increase was twofold. One, the 90s Japanese sports car market as
a whole was trending up. As you may have seen in my Toyota Supra price
analysis video, the late 2010s produced a massive wave on which the collectibility of
90s Japanese nostalgia rose at and exponential rate. Two, though, was unique to the Skyline. Because of its illegality in the US, American
car collectors sought after GTRs but really had no way of owning them. But with the 25 year mark looming closeby,
many importers began purchasing and storing Japanese market GTRs in preparation for the
2024 lifting of import restrictions. And because of that, the price of the average
GTR crept up month by month by month as more and more cars that were hidden away in Japan
began to get listed for sale and bought up and stored by importers and collectors. By the time 2020 rolled around, most GTRs
fetched an average of 70 thousand US dollars. And if you thought that was expensive, well,
2020 was possibly the GTR’s best year yet, with prices going up by another 50%! Over 11 million yen is what the average GTR
cost, that’s 106 thousand dollars. In 2015, that was M-Spec Nur money, but now
if you wanted one of those now, well it was going to cost you a lot more. In September 2020 an M-Spec Nur with 23,000
miles sold for a little over 30 million yen, or 275,000 US. In October, another M-Spec Nur, this time
with 6800 miles, sold for 33.2 million yen, or a little over 300,000 US dollars. Nearly tying that insane 10 mile V-Spec II
Nur from 2018. And then, just two months later, in December,
an M-Spec Nür with 627 miles broke every standing record for the R34 Skyline, when
it sold for 37,000,000 yen. That’s $359,000 dollars. So, in just 10 years, the price of the M-Spec
Nur, went from 5 million Yen, to 37 million yen. Representing a 740% increase. And you know what the craziest part is? It isn’t even the rarest R34. The Z-Tune GTRs, the hand-built 18 examples
of Nissan’s final swan song for the Skyline, are still out there, waiting for the day they
can no doubt break any and all records that came before them. So now, in 2021, with the US 25 year mark
looming, there is no doubt the Skyline GTR will continue to show its dominance as the
king of collectible JDM cars. And as prices climb, the dream of owning one
for a normal car enthusiast like myself, fades further and further into the distance. Thank you guys for watching. Hit like if you liked the video, and subscribe
if you’re interested in more videos like these! We’ve got these awesome Supra shirts available
at our store in the description. I’ll see you guys next time.
