Australian Made: The R31 Skyline

In the 1960’s, Nissan Motor Corporation expanded its business worldwide. It set up factories in the United States, Mexico, England and Australia. In the mid 1980’s, the R31 Skyline was produced and sold with the newly developed RB family of engines that would replace the long-serving L-series. The model sold for the Japanese market came in a 2 Litre inline six.
Australia however, was a bit more bogan and a 3 Litre variation was made specifically for this market.

Buying the car

When I first bought this car, it was a spur-of-the-moment, impulse purchase. It was reasonably priced and looked good when I inspected it online. I had already owned an R33, and wanted something with a bit more style and character. It was in a country town 300 miles from where I lived so I rounded up a couple mates and we drove down in the R33. When I finally inspected the car in person, it was sitting in the backyard of a farm-worker’s house and full of grass. And there were spiders everywhere. As one mate said when he opened the passenger door “Sh** there are two spiders fighting each other! I’m not going in”. And there were in fact two large hairy spiders fighting over their territory between the doors. Spiders aside, we took her for a test drive then tried negotiating with the owner for a better price. I had to drive 300 miles back in a car that groaned from not moving in 5 years, and probably didn’t have the oil and filters changed in that long. This car had not lived up to my expectations, however this was expected since it was much older than the R33 and I decided to take up the challenge anyway.

Design and Styling

The styling of the R31 is very 80’s. It is a big metal box with small strips of chrome around the windows. The lines along the body are straight and follow a slightly triangular shape from the headlights to the much larger tail lamps. Chrome is once again used for the door handles, which unlike cars of today, are made out of metal. There is also an assortment of plastic all over the place; the wing mirrors are plastic, as are the bumpers and door trim. The hub-caps are bold and grey and have many people asking if it really is a 6-stud, like a van or an offroader. The bootlid is once again very boxy, and the tail lamps are hideously huge compared to any other Skyline, and can only be described as pineapple slices hidden inside a plastic… box.

The Interior

The most striking feature of the interior is the dashboard. Made out of plastic, it really feels like you are in a space-aged box. There are controls for adjusting how bright the instrument cluster is, the speedometer is very plain and boring. Inside the dashboard are an assortment of squares that light up telling you what part of the motor is failing, which lights have blown, and when you are pressing on the brakes. There is even a button to set how high you want the radio antenna. The seats are made out of cloth and are very soft; so soft that you can literally feel the springs inside the seat. The door panels have a coating of cloth, as do the ceiling, however there is a large amount of plastic trim. The back and under-sides of the seats are made out of the cheap type of plastic you find on an old passenger jet - it even has headphone plugs in the back of the centre console to allow the passengers to listen to the radio, much like on a passenger jet. The steering wheel feels cheap like a ring of metal coated in plastic, and the gear-shift-lever feels even cheaper. Changing from Park into Drive feels like a cheap toy that you will unintentionally break in the near future.

Handling and Performance

Despite being the only car Nissan produced with the 3 Litre RB engine, power was restricted due to it’s single camshaft. The resulting power was around 160hp at most. Because of this the R31 feels very sluggish and heavy, being made predominantly out of metal. Upon first driving this car, the brakes made me feel like I was in a fully loaded Ford Transit - they take a while before you actually begin to stop. The suspension leans into every corner like an SUV, and the weight of the car makes it dangerous to control around corners. Maybe that’s what you want. But if it isn’t then I would really consider some aftermarket suspension, if you can still find any. As for power, there is a bit there for an every day commuter, however you’d be better off with a twin-cam with a smaller displacement such as a Toyota Corolla.

Closing Thoughts

This is your grandpa-spec 1980’s family sedan. The interior is cheap and sunken, the handling can only make a teenager owning this as a first car smile, and the power can only tower over Nissans in the family fitted with a 2 Litre single cam (R32, R33, Cefiro). However this car is beautiful. This car has its quirks. This car is solid; I crashed into another car once and you can’t even tell. And most of all, this car has potential. With modification such as adjustable suspension, a twin cam head, and re-upholstered seats, and period-correct mag wheels, this can quickly become a dream car. This was the definition of summer for me. Spending Christmas Eve scrubbing the interior and dashboard, Boxing day giving her a cut and polish, New Year’s taking apart the door trim and vacuuming the inside.

Now, would I own one again?
Yes I would.