Generations Of... The Nissan Skyline (Part 2) A #blogpost by Gurminder Bains

Unfortunately, this didn’t get released on Friday thanks to a unexpected grocery trip, but since I’m such a great guy, you guys can have parts two and three today!

How are we all doing today? Good? Well, I’d like to make your day a helluva lot better by welcoming you to the second part of my Generations of the Nissan Skyline blog. In the last part we touched on the origins of the Skyline with the Prince Skylines and moved on onto the first ever Skyline to be branded as a GT-R and finally ended with the Kenmeri Skyline and the Kenmeri GT-R’s abrupt ending. In this second part we will explore everything from the C210 Skyline to the R31 Skyline. So without any hesitation let’s get started!

If you haven’t read the first part here it is

The Gaijin...

The year is 1977 and after the demise of the Kenmeri Skyline comes an all new model the C210. The C210 in my opinion is the true forgotten Skyline, the one that nobody really remembers. The C210 in Japan is commonly known as the ‘Gaijin’, now if you’ve watched Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift you’ll know that the word ‘Gaijin’ means outsider. The C210 is probably known as the Gaijin possibly because it was the only Skyline to not have a racing car counterpart.

Throughout the C210’s production Nissan always kept a line between the four cylinder ‘basic’ models and the six cylinder ‘performance’ models, this is a line that was kept all the way through the Skyline timeline. The body styles on offer for the C210 were as usual a sedan, coupe and the rarest of them all a wagon, rather similarly the engines on offer were a 1.6L four cylinder and two 1.8L four cylinders, the engines producing 93HP, 103HP and 113HP for the 1800TI-EL model.

In 1978, a facelift was given to the C210 which saw a change of internal and external design, and saw the model code change to C211. 1978 was also the first time a Skyline would be exported to European markets.

With the GT-R name discontinued, Nissan had to think up of a new name for their performance Skyline, the C210 was given the name 2000GT-EX, the 2000GT-EX was the first Skyline to be turbocharged and was the first Japanese production car to be turbocharged. However, with the benefits of the turbocharger came some drawbacks, the C210 was not fitted with an intercooler and blow-off valve, only an emergency pressure release

valve which led to the turbo being run at a boost rate than it was designed for. Despite this the 2.0L L20-ET straight six produced 143HP and was available with a four or five speed manual. A lesser version of the GT-EX was also produced, it was known as the 2000GT-EL and it had the same L20-ET engine but produced 118HP.

Later on in 1980 Nissan put a 2.8L straight six diesel into the C210, that car was the GT-Diesel and it produced 89HP

The Forgotten One?

With the mess that was made with the naming of the C210 model Nissan had to whip things back into shape with the R30, which is exactly what they did when it arrived in 1981. As usual the body styles on offer were the coupe, sedan and wagon, but rather inevitably Nissan had now made the four and six cylinder cars exactly the same length instead of elongating the front end to accommodate the six cylinder. In all there were 26 variations of the R30. As usual regular Skylines were given a 1.8L and for the first time two 2.0L engines all three engines being four cylinders. Furthermore, two diesel engines were offered with the Skyline a 2.4L and a 2.8L the 2.4 being a four cylinder and the 2.8 being a six cylinder. The power output figures for all the engines ranged from 103HP to 136HP

The performance Skylines which ranged from the 2000GT to the RSX Turbo C had a whole host of different engines on offer. The lower spec 2000GT was fitted with a six cylinder that was capable of around 130HP. The top spec Skyline RS (Originally known as the 2000RS) was given an all new FJ20 engine, however most of us would be expecting the FJ20 to be a smooth and silky straight six but actually the FJ20E was a four cylinder. However, despite the RS missing two cylinders it still produced 148HP thanks to electronic fuel injection and the RS was considered the as ‘Lightweight’ it only had a quoted kurb weight of 1,130kg.

Along with the facelift of the standard R30 the performance DR30 cars also received a host of upgrades, as for the 2000GT it was given a turbo and a special edition known as the Nissan Skyline Paul Newman Edition R30 (A mouth full I know…). The Nissan Skyline Paul Newman Edition was also known as the Newman Skyline (Much better) and was produced to commemorate the bond between Nissan and the late actor/racing driver Paul Newman. The 2000GT spec car with the addition of the turbo had its power boosted (Get it?) to around 143HP. The top spec RS also received a turbo, and was renamed with the inventive name of RS-Turbo, the gains of the turbocharged FJ20E now renamed the FJ20ET were very noticeable with the car receiving a power hike up to 188HP, to deal with the extra 40HP the front brakes were upgraded.

To raise the profile of the 2000RS Turbo as the ‘flagship’ Skyline Nissan decided that the car needed to be significantly different from the average Skyline, therefore the interior equipment was upgraded which saw the addition of air con and power steering these luxuries were as standard in the 2000RS-X Turbo, the X standing for Extra. The additional equipment also meant a slightly higher kurb weight of 1,235kg. Along with the list of luxuries the DR30 was given a totally different front end look to the normal Skyline a look that was known as ‘Tekkamen’ or Iron Mask. To me the ‘Iron Mask’ look of the DR30 resembles that of a pig nose S13 Coupe.

The DR30 is still as car that has a large cult following in Japan and around the world with one make drag racing tournaments still taking place, all this despite the DR30 and R30 generation being known as the ‘unloved’ Skyline. The DR30 was not just a success amongst tuning enthusiasts, it was also a full out racing car with the FJ20ET being turned up to 350HP.

The 1986 Australian Touring Car Series saw Nissan enter a factory backed team called the Peter Jackson Nissan Team and the car made a debut in 1986 the ten round race series saw the DR30 win four out of the ten but the unreliability of the DR30 in the opening two rounds is what cost it the championship, losing out to a Volvo 240T by five points. Similarly, the Australian Endurance Series saw the DR30 finish second again this time losing out to BMW even though the DR30 won four out of the six rounds its early unreliability is what dearly cost it. Even so Nissan clinched the 1986 Constructors Title from BMW.

The end of the DR30’s racing career saw the DR30 losing out again to the BMW M3 in the final race of the Australian Touring Car Series, the DR30 also lost out in a support race for the Australian GP to the Sierra RS500. However, the DR30 was yet again sent home with the conciliation prize only this time it was half as Nissan were joint constructors champions with BMW. The DR30 was used till 1989 by smaller teams.

Things Are Looking Better...

The appearance of the 1986 R31 Skyline looked like the natural evolution of the R30 it was part based on the C32 Nissan Laurel which meant the R31 was longer than the R30. As per usual the R31 was introduced in sedan, coupe and wagon forms. It was known as the ‘7th Sukairain’ which means 7th Skyline. The R31 introduced many new technologies to the Skyline range along with the introduction of the famous RB engines, the early RB’s were often known as red-tops due to the cam covers being red. The regular Skylines were given a 1.8L four cylinder offering 90HP and four variations of the 2.0L straight six RB20 with or without a turbocharger ranging from 92HP- 180HP.

As for the performance models Nissans enhancements of the RB engine carried on with the flagship GTS-R having 210HP from the 2.0L turbocharged straight six, the more attainable performance models used the same RB20 with the cheapest GTS having 155HP, the GTS Turbo with 180HP and the GTS-X being given 190HP. A special Autech Edition of the GTS-R was also made with different exterior styling.

With the GTS-R being the flagship R31 it was imperative that the car went into racing, the normal RB20DET-R powered GTS-R was only given 800 units so that a homologation Group A race car could be built. The race car arrived in 1987 and had a heavily reworked RB20DET-R, the road car produced 210HP as I mentioned before, the Group A car was given double that and an additional 10HP, yes the R31 Group A car had 430HP. It was later found that some Group A cars were capable of producing closer to 450HP. Unlike its predecessor the DR30, the R31 was successful out on the track with the car winning the Australian 1989 ‘Sandown 500’. The GTS-R Group A also won six out of eight races in the 1989 Australian Touring Car Series, with the final two rounds being won by the R32 GTR. This was the first time Nissan had won the Australian Touring Car Series.

Thanks For Reading

Well, thanks for reading! I hope you learnt something about my favourite series of cars today and I hope you enjoyed learning as much as I did. Go ahead and read part three, the continuation of the Skyline generations covering the R32 all the way through to the R34.