Generations Of... The Nissan Skyline (Part 1) A #blogpost by Gurminder Bains.

Welcome, to what is a new series of blog posts by none other than myself! In this series I will be exploring certain cars and going through their generations, so where better to start than with my favourite series of car. The Nissan Skyline, this introduction of the series will be exploring the generations of the Skyline from start to finish and then moving on into why each generation is special and why it is the best generation, at the end of the posts in the finale there will be a vote to see which generation the good people of CarThrottle love the most. However, all of that will be available in the weeks to come, let’s start with the origins of the Skyline.

Origins Of The Skyline

Originally, produced by Prince Motor Company in 1957, the Prince Skyline was available as a Sedan and Wagon and later introduced in Coupe and Convertible form. The Skyline was marketed as a ‘Luxury Car’ it was introduced in 1957 by Prince Motor Company. It was available with a 1.5L four cylinder and was capable of producing 60 HP and a top speed of 84MPH. As I’m sure you can tell the Prince Skyline was heavily influenced by cars from the land of the free (America) specifically the 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, with its tail fins and two tone paint.

From launch two trim levels were available for the Skyline, the ALSIS-1 and ALSID-1 Deluxe, the differences between the two were the Deluxe featured a different grille, gold ‘PRINCE’ lettering between the fog lights and ‘Skyline Deluxe’ badging on the front side panels. The second series of the Prince Skyline (Face Lift if you will) was exactly the same other than the additions of dual front headlights and the addition of an optional bigger 1.9L four-cylinder engine with 70HP on tap. The ALSI-2 was released in 1959 along with the Deluxe variant. The final form of the ALSI saw it transform into the BLSI-3 so that the ALSI name could be used for a compact Prince model. The BLSI dropped the 1.5L engine in favour of a new 1.9L which was used in the series 2 car but had a more powerful option available with 94HP.

The S21 Skyline, was considered a failure as it attempted to update the Prince Skyline as it gave the car a 60s front with a 50s rear and side.

Up and till this point there was no sports option for the Skyline so Prince went to designer Giovanni Michelotti who later on went to work for Ferrari, Maserati and BMW designed the beautiful BLRA-3 Skyline Sport. However, in essence the Sport wasn’t much of a leap from the then S21 Skyline as it was a two door coupe/convertible with the same underpinnings as the S21 generation Skyline which used the 1.9L four-cylinder engine with 94HP. On the other hand, the Sports looks earned it a place in the in the movies, even then a small volume of cars were produced. This was when the Skyline GT-R was conceived, the moment when Prince turned around and thought hang on we can make something great here…

The Next Generation

In 1963, Prince announced the Prince Skyline 1500 (S50), The second generation of the Skyline saw the car produced only as a Sedan and Wagon and became a very desirable car in Japan due to it being aimed at families, workmen and taxi drivers. The 1500, was offered with a 68HP four-cylinder and was available with a 3 speed auto and a 4 speed manual. It’s thought that the S50, took inspiration from the Ford Galaxie and the proportions of a BMW 02 Series. Later in the S50’s life it was available with a 55HP Diesel engine.

A year after the S50’s released in 1964 Prince ripped apart the Skyline and created a race version dubbed with the Skyline 2000GT (S54) name, the car borrowed a 2.0L Straight six from the Skylines bigger brother the Prince Gloria. The car was entered into the Japanese Grand Prix and competed against the Porsche 904, remarkably the 2000GT qualified second and finished sixth in the GT2 category. Due to the success of the 2000GT, 100 road cars were made some with a single carb six cylinder which produced 104HP and others with a triple carb-ed six cylinder producing 123HP.

In 1966 Prince Motor Company merged with Nissan to form Nissan-Prince, a year later the final rendition of the second generation Skyline appeared, together they produced the Nissan Prince Skyline 1500 (S57) it was given an 88HP 1.5 four-cylinder, which was the most powerful 1.5L car in Japan at the time.

The Birth Of The GT-R

Like me if you’re a lover of Nissan you’ll know that the next car is in fact the Nissan Skyline (C10), the C10 was the first Skyline to actually use the GT-R name, furthermore, the C10 was also known as the Hakosuka which is a mix of two words ‘Hako’ meaning box and ‘Suka’ meaning Skyline, the C10 was given this name due to its boxy styling. The C10 came around in 1968 and featured a 1.5 and 1.8 with the 1.5 variant being the same used in the S57 and the new 1.8 producing 105HP.

For a year the 1.5L and the 1.8L were the only engines on offer for the C10 until in 1969 when the first Skyline GT-R appeared with a 2.0L straight six with 160HP and was designed by Prince Motor Company. Originally, GT-R’s were available only in sedan trim but in 1971 Nissan offered a coupe model along with a the 2000GT-X and 2000GT trim levels, which used the same straight six as the GT-R but were given 120HP and 105HP. What set the GT-R apart was the fact that it was stripped of all unnecessary equipment and were made to be as light as possible. This proved to be useful at the track with the sedan GT-R racking up 33 victories and the coupe securing 17 victories. The GT-R’s streak was only demolished by the Mazda RX-3 in 1971.

Ken and Mary Arrive

When the time came to replace the ageing C10, Nissan decided that the new car had to be exported to other markets and it had to influence the styling of the new sports car that Nissan were about to released (Enter Nissan Silvia). Once again the C110 Skyline was available in sedan, coupe and wagon forms with the engines for the standard Skylines being a 1.6L and a 1.8L both being four cylinder engines. Like its predecessor the C110 was given a nickname although this nickname was less cultural and more promotional with its meaning, the C110 became known as the Kenmeri, the reasoning behind the name was the advertisements for the C110 which featured a young couple called Ken and Mary who ‘loved driving their Skyline’.

When the time came to develop the new GT-R, Nissan had a pretty fool proof recipe due to the success of the Hakosuka, so Nissan used the same 2.0L straight six, producing 160HP. The GT-R was launched in 1972 but only lasted until 1973 because of an oil crisis meaning that sports cars were frowned upon and econoboxes were the preferred option. Another reason for the Kenmeri GT-R’s demise was the fact that Nissan had pulled out of motorsport, meaning there was no purpose for a sports orientated Skyline. Although, the expansion of the Skyline GT-R name was the main goal for the Kenmeri, only 197 cars were produced and sold in Japan, the cars were sold through Nissan Performance dealerships (Nismo before it was called Nismo)

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. Stay tuned for part two, the continuation of the Skyline generations covering the C210 all the way through to the R34. Please do take some time to look through the gallery.

Thanks For Reading!

ガーミンダーズ・バン Gāmindāzu ban (Gurminder Bains)