The R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R Is the Ultimate Japanese Icon

this is a 1999 Nissan Skyline GTR the R34 GTR and I want it bad everyone does who grew up in the 1990s because this car was the ultimate performance car in so many video games and we could never have it here in America well this one's here it's legal and today I'm going to review it and show you all the quirks and features of the R34 GTR before I get started big news this R34 GTR is currently for sale and it's being auctioned live on cars and bins this GTR is a v-spec model finished in beautiful midnight purple and it is legally important to the United States under the show or display Rule and you can buy it on cars and bids so once you finish watching this video click the link in the description below to go to the live auction for this R34 Skyline GTR where you can bid on it and buy it only on cars and bids all right I'm going to start the cricks and features of the R34 Skyline GTR with a little overview of what makes this car so special so the Skyline GTR first came out in the late 60s in the early 70s and it was a high performance version of Nissan's regular midsize Skyline model my much like a lot of American muscle cars were high performance versions of regular American cars at the same time now the Skyline GTR name went away for almost 20 years but Nissan revived it in 1989 to create the R32 Skyline GTR the first modern era GTR in 94 it was updated to become the r33 GTR but the big dog unquestionably the most iconic and special of the bunch is this model the R34 which came out in 99 was sold through 2002. now this was the last Skyline GTR a few years after this went out of production Nissan came out with the new GTR but it wasn't the same thing it wasn't quite based on a Skyline in the same way it was effectively a totally new ground up vehicle unlike this and it wasn't as rare or as special or as forbidden as this car since these were never sold in the United States and the new GTR was over the years the R34 GTR dominated so many car video games that came out of Japan like Gran Turismo and had a legend that just grew and grew and grew now part of the reason for the gtr's legendary status is the powertrain this is the rb-26 twin turbo six cylinder a famous engine among performance cars it was used in all of the later Skyline GTRs the r3233 and 34 used it and here it was rated at 276 horsepower and I say that with a little uncertainty because back in the 90s in order to combat street racing and horsepower escalation and to promote a safer driving atmosphere the Japanese car companies got together and decided that all their performance cars would have 276 horsepower didn't matter if it was a 3000 GT or a Skyline GTR 300ZX they were all 276 even though actually actual numbers were higher I had an R32 Skyline GTR with this powertrain mostly unmodified and I dynoed that at about 320 horsepower a lot of people think the R34 made even more but officially it was 276 and regardless the stock Factory horsepower wasn't the thing that made this engine so special it was the tunability these cars have an enormous aftermarket devoted to tuning and they commonly get over a thousand horsepower on the stock engine and then they blow up and people rebuild them because that's just what you do with GTRs this particular GTR is unusual because it's largely unmodified most people over the last 25 years found it hard to resist the temptation of more power now from 99 to O2 when the R34 GTR was in production Nissan only made about 11 500 of them so they're pretty rare and this particular one is a v-spec model which stood for victories spec the v-spec is actually the most common of the bunch there's a little over 4 000 of these R34 GTR v-spec models but it was the one you wanted because it had some great upgrades over the standard Skyline GTR probably the biggest upgrade was an active rear limited slip differential which helped you for handling and performance driving on the racetrack and although all R34 GTRs had all-wheel drive the v-spec models had an upgraded tuned all-wheel drive they called the Pro system that also helped to improve handling other v-spec benefits included stiffer suspension again for better handling and some cosmetic upgrades in front you had a front splitter which gave it a more aggressive look and in back you had a rear diffuser again an upgrade over the standard non-v-spec Skyline GTR one other very cool thing about this particular car is its color it's finished in Midnight Purple that's what they called it and this was a factory color and this is a factory midnight purple Skyline GTR it's an amazing color that basically shifts in the light it's usually purple but sometimes it can look green or blue or even red depending on exactly where you're looking at it gorgeous paint flakes it's an absolutely breathtakingly beautiful color in my mind just as iconic as the famous Bayside blue that these cars are also known for midnight purple very very special but anyway next up let's talk through the Crux and features of the R34 GTR starting on the outside and starting in back with those tail lights and absolutely iconic design the four circles the two on the outside larger than the two on the inside it was incredibly well known by everybody who played video games in the 90s the camera was always right above the car from the back you were looking at those tail lights just thinking about how fast this car was and how you couldn't have it in America of course you also see the iconic GTR badge back here GT over the red R which meant business even the trunk line in this car is kind of iconic just because of its sort of weird shape that curved around the tail lights everything about the rear of this car is special well-known and unique to the R34 GTR now moving down the side this car still has its factory wheels which is rare so many people upgraded at least into their Minds the Wheels on these cars but I always love the way the factory wheels look they were subtle understated but still performance-y and exciting behind the factory wheels you have gold brake calipers this car used Brembo brakes with these distinctive gold calipers that contrast kind of nicely with midnight purple it looks very cool also worth pointing out in back these cars had rear wheel steering you didn't have to get the v-spec to get it all R34 GTRs in fact I think all modern Skyline GTRs had rear wheel steering to help again enhance the car's handling prowess also worth pointing out in back is the rear wing which is similarly iconic to the rest of the rear end it's huge massive perch there on the trunk and it meant business compared to the regular standard everyday Skyline models the rear wing is also adjustable the little flap on the end you can see has a couple of positions you got to do it with tools you can't just press a button inside the car but it is adjustable if you wanted to change your downforce experience now moving up front to the R34 GTR I always loved the front end design of this car far more than the R32 and r33 which I never thought were really all that aggressive they looked nice but I always thought they looked too fun too eager to please happy-go-lucky not aggressive enough for a car like this the R34 remedied that the headlights narrow as they go into the center The Grille is bigger the front end just means business more aggressive than previous models I always thought it looked amazing and I like that the GTR badge is front and center in the grill Nissan didn't bother with its Nissan branding on this car if you knew you knew it just said GTR in fact the only Nissan badge the entire exterior of this car is in the center of the trunk in back otherwise it was all GTR even the wheel caps just GTR in here I didn't bother with that Nissan stuff people people knew the GTR and by the way speaking of the rear that badging back there one other interesting item in the back of the R34 GTR it has a rear wiper which you never really see on cars with a trunk but some performance cars from Japan in this era had them they had all-wheel drive and I think the goal was an all-weather performance car and so a rear wiper helped underscore than it was capable of being exactly that unusual to see on a car with this body style and next up we move inside the R34 GT are although just getting inside I want to start with the key which is pretty cool regular Metal Key it says GTR in the top which looks neat and it's paired with a key fob like a lot of cars from this era a remote for lock and unlock you flip that over and it also has the GTR logo on it even the fob was GTR branded but climb inside you can see this is a right hand drive car no surprise the primary market for this car was Japan which is of course a right-hand Drive country and Nissan never made any left-hand Drive Skyline GTRs they only sold these in right hand drive countries mainly Japan but also Australia New Zealand the UK a few other markets that were all right hand drive so this is the only way you could get these but anyway moving further into the interior most enthusiasts when they come in contact with the inside of an R34 GTR they're surprised by how well basic it is not exactly basic but regular the exterior of this car is such an icon and it totally takes your breath away to see one especially for Americans who most of us haven't seen one then the power and performance is so incredible the tune ability the massive horsepower these can make but when you get inside it almost doesn't seem to match up with the iconic status of the rest of this car in fact it looks a lot like a late 90s Nissan in here although you do have a couple of interesting items that are Skyline GTR unique one is the manual transmission six-speed manual in this car it's the only way they came they never offered these with an automatic so you had a mandatory six-speed now next you look at the gauge cluster and you can see that the tachometer goes to 10 000 RPM now Redline kicks in at 8 000 but but still I don't think a lot of other late 90s Nissans had tax that went to 10. hilariously the speedometer only goes to 180 kilometers an hour which translates to about 110 miles per hour Japan in this era was really focused on keeping speeds down keeping the roads safe and so they did stuff like limit speedometers as if anybody thought that was going to limit people's speeds but that was one of the actions they took and so this massive crazy performance car only has 110 mile an hour speedometer now another big change in here compared to regular Nissan models from this era the seats you had these tightly bolstered sport seats with holes in the backrest for a racing seat belt if you wanted to and no leather here instead you had this cloth with dots pattern that was meant to provide a little more friction than a standard seat and keep you in place on the racetrack these seats obviously very different from what you had in a Maxima now the other really interesting thing that the R34 GTR had that other Skyline GTR models didn't is this screen mounted on the dashboard at the top in the center this mainly gave you performance readouts instant readouts of all sorts of different measures of Vehicle Health that you might be interested in if you're drag racing or racing at the track or just tuning your car you can get readouts instantaneously on this screen various different things far beyond what a normal person driving a car would want and there's a couple quick key things you can do with this screen for one there's an area labeled Red Zone that you go in and it shows you the maximums of various different readouts for this car but they are adjustable so if you've tuned this car and you know you can make more boost pressure well you can dial up the maximum so it won't give you a warning and that's true with various other items as well an interesting idea you can also adjust the red line well not actually but you can adjust where the car tells you to up shift because it's hitting the red line if you've done some tuning and you know you can bring your engine higher or you just want to your Redline warning can be adjusted so it won't kill your fun prematurely also worth pointing out that this screen has a button marked TV you push it and nothing happens but I do wonder if there's a TV transmitter built in that would have worked in Japan that's something that you actually see somewhat frequently in Japanese cars especially from this era a TV built in somewhere it was such an electronic focused culture that that wouldn't be totally out of place and it's interesting to see that there now speaking of screens in this car you will also note that lowered down in the center control stack there is another screen this one obviously aftermarket and it's used to control your music you can hook up a music player to this and this is how you control it the factory head unit has been replaced with this improved unit now also worth pointing out in this interior a couple of small things in the center you have cup holders lift up this flap and they're there but they are small same deal with the center storage area you lift up the armrest and there's storage but once again it is unusually small the rest of this stuff in this interior though is largely late 90s early 2000s Nissan which means that it's durable usable reliable it's lasted for a long time without scratches or fading but it's not especially a standout no iconic interior design in here to match the exterior you even have this little diagram on the side of the steering column that explains the position of the lighting stock that the turn signals the high beams all that stuff you can't see this diagram but Nissan put it on all of their models for a long time apparently including the Skyline GTR because driving enthusiasts who bought this car needed to be educated about how to use their turn signals by the way also in this vicinity below that stock you have this panel which opens up revealing a storage area where someone left their glasses this is a little hidden compartment so I bet those glasses have been in this car since Japan if you owned this car in Japan we have your glasses send us a note cars and bids we'll get them back to you no problem now also interesting to see in this car it has back seats for a little added practicality only two seats back there as you can see there's no Center seat and they're surprisingly well bolstered also just like the front seats I guess they figured if you had rear passengers you might be taking them on the racetrack so they didn't want you to slide around and you have the same dot cloth friction material again for that purpose to keep you from sliding around in the seats as you're doing hard g-forces and cornering beyond that nothing really interesting about the back seats they're totally No Frills but they are there in case you wanted to use your Skyline GTR for family transport and next up we move on to the cargo area in the R34 GTR the trunk which you open it with a little key fob or there's a lever inside and well frankly it's just a fairly standard trunk you can see decent size so you got some practicality in this car but nothing unusual or special or interesting in here although I did find one thing that was amusing you have hydraulic struts for this trunk you don't normally see that in car trunks usually just the hinge and gravity is enough to keep them open but in this car you have a massive rear wing and with that thing on there adding weight I guess Nissan figured they needed to add some hydraulic struts to keep the trunk up when you're loading and unloading so the last thing to discuss is exactly how how this car is here most people know you can't legally import a car to the United States unless it's 25 years old that's generally true but there are a few exceptions one of those exceptions is called show or display this is a regulation that's aimed at making sure that certain very historically significant special cars can be imported before they turn 25 for show or display purposes we want to see the cool stuff and so there's an exemption for very special cars you have to qualify you can't just import whatever and say show or display there's a list that the government keeps of very special cars that qualify and this the R34 GTR v-spec is on the list and this car is a show or display exempt vehicle which puts it here legally now the only drawback to shower display is a mileage limit 2500 miles a year is your maximum but for most people that's about all they dry special shower display type cars and it's better to have a mileage limit and have the car here than no mileage limit and no car so this is here legally with show or display all right driving the R34 GTR and the simple truth is I love this car I love to drive it you know this car is overrated like by definition it's just got so much lore around it and and it's become so valuable and you almost can't not be overrated but when you're sitting in it behind the wheel and you're going it just it's so good I mean it's just excellent couple things that really make this car special the powertrain is really one of them you know everybody talks about how tunable this powertrain is you can get the thousand horsepower and blah blah blah and people are doing that but I think this powertrain is great stock 330 horsepower give or take is like the right number for so many cars I felt that for so so long I say that in videos from 10 years ago and it feels like the right number in this car it seems really quick but it's not like aggressively absurdly so where you can't have fun and the engine is eager you don't have to be too high in the Rev range to give it some good acceleration and you get going now it doesn't sound amazing this engine uh at least in stock form but it has all the good stuff it's quick quick it's reliable in an untuned State really reliable it's a robust engine that's why people can get a thousand horsepower out of them um and it's just it's good the other important thing that makes this car so good is the way that it steers and handles the really great thing about the R34 GTR is the steering feel it is precise it is tight it is quick in a way that virtually no other cars from this era are my buddy Kennon who's been in a couple of my videos he's got a Ferrari 355. that car is older than this one so you think okay the hydraulic steering era feels even more connected this car feels super connected that the steering is just immediate and precise real exotic performance cars from this era I owned a Ferrari 360. they did not feel as precise and as quick to steer as this car it's not a purpose-built mid-engine exotic sports car like a Ferrari but it steers better than one okay so the drawbacks price is obviously one of them this car is going to sell for over two hundred thousand dollars that is a ridiculous amount of money for a late 90s Nissan even though this is a very special late 90s Nissan it is big money for a late 90s Nissan no doubt about it but this car of all the 90s Japanese sports cars and there were so many the Supras the 300zxes 3000 GTS this car has gained the status even over the NSX of being the one the most iconic the most desirable car from this era and it's it's got a lot of things going forward it wasn't available here so it has this sort of wow factor it's incredibly low production and it's like the end of a special era the last of the art of the skyline GTRs the last vehicle made like this it's special on so many levels the interior is a drawback it's not bad in here but it's not like special as I've mentioned it the exterior special the performance is special the steel of the car is special the interior is not special other than that this is just awesome this car was so cool and I hate to feed into the hyper of these things because they've gotten crazily hyped and I think they the values are just so out of control but when you really think about what this car is and what it meant to like a generation of car enthusiasts begging for a lot of cars that we couldn't get in America to come to America and this is the one we wanted the most we eventually got the WRX we got the Evo the European cars all eventually came but this car was the one everybody wanted and now there's a few of them trickling over and it just is so cool driving this car around people just freak and with good reason it's just a really special car that whether you like it or not is going to come to Define this generation the video game kids who grew up in the 90s and early 2000s will be defined by their love of this car and now that these cars are becoming legal it's going to be special and that's what it is and the good news is it's actually great to drive this isn't a don't meet your Heroes car where it's not actually enjoyable it's still fun to drive one other drawback by the way one thing I don't love is right hand and drive a lot of people get used to it and for this car you got no other choice although there have been some left-hand Drive conversions but in my mind I've never been a fan of driving right hand drive it's just a little difficult to do but this car is just so cool and it deserves all the accolades that people say about it even though they say a lot and so that's the R34 Nissan Skyline GTR this car is amazing it's a childhood dream and I absolutely love it I love driving it I love looking at it everything about this car is so special and you can buy it on cars and bids anyway now it's time to give this R34 GTR a Doug score and the Doug score is here 60 out of 100 which places the R34 GTR here against contemporary Rivals right near the top in the end this car is just plain cool absolutely revered by a generation of car enthusiasts as the ultimate Japanese car which it basically was it's fun to drive sure fast and tunable and it handles great but really this car's big selling point is that it's just a seriously amazing icon one of the all-time Automotive greats as a bonus it drives pretty damn well too [Music]

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 1,039,749

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Id: AHVEoRLD-ok

Length: 23min 44sec (1424 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 01 2023