Nissan Skyline GT-R Through The Decades

Performance icons all, the Nissan Skyline GT-R needs no introduction – apart from to your bank manager, perhaps. The price of entry goes R33, R32 and R34 – in that order. With the earliest four-wheel drive GT-Rs now legal in the USA, prices can only go up.

For years, the NissanSkyline GT-R was a dimly understood legend, a piece of import exotica driven via joypad or glimpsed through badly subtitles episodes of Best Motoring International.

R32 SKYLINE GT-R (19891994): £17,995 to £65,000 Wishing to re-enter international motorsport, Nissan decided to adopt a four-wheel drive configuration for its early Nineties Skyline GT-R, known internally as the R32.

Inspired by the all-wheel drive, twin- turbocharged, six-cylinder Porsche 959, the R32 was to serve as a performance road car flagship and take the Nissan brand back to the race track. As new decade dawned, the BNR32 GT-R ended the reign of the Ford Sierra RS500 in Australia; traditional touring cars simply couldn’t keep up.

Computer control was the GT-R’s advantage – and Nissan would develop its system (and carry on augmenting it) right up until the present day; that the GT-R could apportion power to the most expedient wheel (on road or on track) created a drivers’ car unlike any other.