There’s just something deeply magic about seeing a tuned Nissan Skyline GT-R in America – it's like the JDM car culture really flourishes in the sunny areas of California or Florida. Especially when said samurai packs a ton of mods with big names like HKS, Haltech, or Spool Imports on it. And a convenient 850 all-wheel horsepower thanks to some neat NOS sprays...
Any way you put it, the R33 Nissan Skyline GT-R has always been a monster of a car. Especially since it’s such a great base to build a custom performance architecture upon it – such as equipping it with a great (albeit single) HKS T51R turbo, drive by wire, sequential transmission, and more.
Although produced for a very brief period in quite small numbers (less than 17k), the R33 has become a darling of the JDM community in so many places across the world – Japan, the UK, or Australia are a given because of the right-hand drive configuration.
But it has also achieved a cult following in America – and this time around it’s not because of the Fast & Furious franchise (a yellow 1995 example played a very minor role).
Which is why we can’t help but get hooked up to such interesting projects as this 1996 Nissan Skyline R33 GT-R that was created with help from R-Performance over the course of about two years. It’s an old acquaintance of YouTube’s That Racing Channel, but thanks to the constant work it’s always fresh.
This time around, Javier (this episode’s host), has decided to pay the Skyline a visit in order to check out the latest modifications. These include the addition of the single HKS T51R, drive by wire, and nitrous oxide. The latter sits in a very cool carbon fiber bottle in the trunk alongside the audio setup – the boot is certainly equipped for both race and play!
If you want the rundown on the modifications performed so far and the ones to come you can jump to the 12:10 mark, but we recommend taking things “slowly.” For example, you could start with a nice acceleration POV (5:45), check out the carbon fiber nitrous switch (6:45), and a NOS spray during a spool (9:15).
After the appetizer you can go through the main course, as the Skyline encounters an Audi R8 (10:15) and they engage in several highway rolls (we refrain from commending such activities, seriously!) with obvious results (hint, the Skyline wins).
Because the owner is quite the chill guy, Javier itself takes the wheel (14:40) and afterwards (23:10) even the camera guy gets to experience the power of the brute – first from the left seat, and then directly from the “captain’s chair.”
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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