Dream Car: C35 Laurel

Yesterday I mentioned that I would have traded in my Skyline for an RB20DET R32 that had been tuned by Tommy Kaira.
This time around I found an RB25DET Laurel on the local auction website.

The Nissan Laurel is a common drift platform in the countries that were lucky enough to get them. In all other countries, they are relatively unknown. The photo above looks like a good example, except that the owner has done some mods to it which no-one will approve of - like removing the ABS and moving the handbrake - and was in “good” condition for NZ - this means only a few tears and rips in the leather seats.
This lead to the question, what could I get in Japan for the same price?

Well I jumped online to the Goo and found something that was rather nice.

This is a Laurel S Club 25T, except with a factory 25DET and has a front-mount intercooler hidden behind a factory-looking bodykit.
For those of you who don’t know, this is the rival of the Toyota Chaser Tourer V - the top-spec sporty Toyota sedan to feature the 1JZ-GTE.

This Laurel probably sits on a set of coilovers as the Work Emotion Kiwami/CR-Kai wheels tuck neatly under the guards.

Inside we have a nice beige leather interior matched with faux-woodgrain highlights, even on the steering wheel. The gearbox has been swapped for a manual one; it is not mentioned what the gearbox was out of.

The pièce de résistance is the neo RB25DET - if you can’t cough up the $6,000 for an RB26DETT + extra to convert to RWD, try to pick up one of these. They are built better than the previous generations of RB and tune almost as well as an RB26.

For $8,680, this is quite the steal, considering the asking price for the title car is $2,000 more. After shipping and compliance, they come to about the same price.