- For many, the Nissan Skyline nameplate
is something easily recognizable through
the perfect storm of coincidences.
Not only was the Skyline becoming a winning car
in touring car racing through the mid-eighties,
it was shooting for all out world domination
by the late eighties and early nineties.
So naturally, all of us car guys knew
about these cars and knew that we couldn't have them.
It created that forbidden fruit syndrome
and people lusted after these cars.
That and, add in the whole thing where Universal Studios'
biggest film franchise Fast and the Furious,
that's the 10th highest grossing film series ever,
with a combined gross of $5.8 billion,
uses the Skyline as a hero car in most of their movies.
But with all that hype,
it's easy to get lost and misled
onto which Skyline is the greatest of all time,
which brings me to my next point.
Which Skyline is the best Skyline and why?
Well, you might want to sit down for this one
because my completely unbiased self is gonna learn
you some things about the Skyline
and end the argument once and for all
and name which Skyline is the certified G.O.A.T.
What's going on guys?
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Now for the sake of all of our sanity, I'm only going
to talk about the main three generations
that we all know and we all love,
which is the R32 generation through the R34 generation.
We will not be covering any
of the pre-R30s, R30, or R31s or the R35s.
If this is something you'd like to see us cover,
let us know in the comments.
I read every single one and I take friggin' notes.
So without any further ado, let's talk
about the R32 Skyline and the GTR.
By the R32 generation, the Skyline
had been through many different phases
but it was in 1989 that the real precursor
to the GTR of today was introduced.
The R32 GTR had all-wheel drive,
a mandatory manual transmission
and that raced to fame RB26DETT, inline-six
that pumped out a supposed 280 horsepower.
It was pretty well noted that these cars were under-promised
and over-delivered after a stripped down version
of the R32 entered the Japanese Touring Car Championship
in 1989 and it won every single race that it started,
29 in a row if we're counting.
It also took victory at the 1991 Spa 24-hour race
and decimated the competition in Australian racing
with three Group A championships between 1990
and 1992 with a first place victory
at the Bathurst 1091 and 92, which ultimately led
to the car's well deserved nickname: Godzilla.
And although we never got it state side,
the Skyline was and still is a legend
all around the world because of this.
But its racing career isn't the car's only appeal.
You could get a turbocharged, two-liter,
six cylinder version of the Skyline
in both coup and convenient sedan form.
That could be had in both rear-wheel drive
and all-wheel drive without the huge GTR price tag.
And with those more realistic prices,
it's easier and cheaper to make the GTS-ts
a fun sliding boy track toy
or just get into that Skyline nameplate
without diving headfirst into a super expensive GTR.
And in all honesty, it's probably the one that I would buy
with the recently skyrocketing GTR prices.
Anyway, the R32 is the quintessential Skyline right now,
being that it's the first one to get imported
like mad because it was that "must have car"
if you wanted to become famous on the internet.
And let's not forget about those late eighties
aggressively chiseled looks
that are indistinguishably the GTR shape.
They made a literal metric (beep) ton of these cars.
So it says a lot for the heritage,
timeless design and capabilities
that these cars are increasing in value over time.
The R32 Skyline and the GTR
are genuinely fantastic sports cars
and are a first choice for many "tuners,"
including some of the fastest all-wheel drive drag
and circuit cars in the world.
In the stock form, some are gonna argue
that the R33 Skyline GTR is a little bit better.
For the R33 generation, Nissan put a lot
of effort towards reducing front end lift,
improving weight distribution, and stiffening
up the chassis, making the cars handling both friendlier
and more capable than the R32 at the absolute limit.
The R33 got a slight bump in track width,
a stronger gearbox and just a bunch of revised components
to clear up some of the issues that the R32 did have.
And in doing so, the cars did gain a little bit of weight
but it must have helped because the R33 GTR
was over 20 seconds faster in the Nurburgring than the R32.
20 frigging seconds.
That is a literal (beep) ton.
The R33 GTR may not have changed
the way people saw Japanese sports cars the world over,
but it certainly was the polished
and the enhanced version of it.
Even the GTS-t gained a ton of upgrades,
the most significant being the added displacement,
and was equipped with an RB25DET
that was much more capable than that outgoing GTS-t.
But maybe the biggest change of all was the R33's styling.
Nissan smoothed out all the edges and the shapes here.
Although roughly a similar silhouette,
everything on the exterior was changed outside
of the round taillights to make the thing look
more streamlined, a little more aerodynamic,
and overall much more mid-nineties,
but something was kind of off.
Why in the Sam hell is a car that's more powerful
and more capable and more refined than its predecessor
not gaining that hype or the demand
of those who already were fans?
Well, I think at the end of the day,
it's sort of lacked just some character.
Let me tell you a relevant story
that I learned in a marketing class.
In the 1950s, General Mills launched a line
of cake mixes under the famous Betty Crocker brand.
Why am I talking about Betty Crocker in this Skyline video?
The cake mixes included
all the dry ingredients in the package.
Most notably, milk and eggs in powdered form.
All you needed to do was add water.
It saved time and effort
and the recipe was virtually error free.
So one would think General Mills had
a guaranteed seller on his hands, wouldn't ya?
Despite the many benefits and enhancements of the new mix,
it did not sell well at all.
The company needed to make its next move very carefully
if it was going to get their product off the ground.
Why were consumers resisting it?
The short answer, it was too easy.
It saved so much time and effort when compared
to the traditional cake baking routine
that they felt they were deceiving their husbands
and their guests, which back when housewives were
a thing, it was a pretty big deal.
And after General Mills paid a bunch
of psychologists to figure this out,
they went against all conventional marketing wisdom
and revised the product to make it less convenient.
The housewife was in charge
of adding a real egg to the ingredients,
creating the perception of true effort.
General Mills re-launched the new product with the slogan,
"Just Add an Egg" and sales
of the Betty Crocker instant cake mix soared.
And I think you're seeing the same thing
here with the R33, too.
When you make a car too refined, or too good or too easy,
all the character leave the building,
and I think it's that character
that really sells an enthusiast car.
So what did Nissan do to the Skyline to turn it all around?
Honestly, from a high level,
not much changed from the R33 to the R34.
It's important to remember
that Nissan was approaching bankruptcy
during the development of the R34 GTR
and if you read some of the engineering retrospectives,
it was clear that the R34 GTR project scope
was drastically scaled down due to a bunch of budget cuts.
In fact, they pretty well followed the same formula
that they used to develop the not-so-well-selling R33.
They added stiffness, reduced the front lift,
upgraded some components in the drive train
and added a little bit more boost
with the integration of ball-bearing turbo.
But it seems as if they took notes
from the whole General Mills debacle
because they brought back the nearly juvenile amounts
of angular aggression in the body design,
power got a decent bump even though they still claimed
it made the same power as the R32
and technology went through the roof.
They found ways to make it seem larger
than life on paper and more engaging in practice rather
than just being 15% better than the outgoing model.
One of the ways they did this was
by using the digital display to host a plethora
of gauges to let you monitor things
like boost pressure and G-Force.
A very appropriate touch
for the so-called PlayStation generation of Skylines,
especially with computer technology exploding at that time.
The R34 GTR just goes to show that focusing
on excitement is just as important
as making it better than the previous generation.
I think that's truly why these cars were a favorite
in video games like Gran Turismo
and why the Fast and the Furious hero car
was so engaging for the fans.
They gave the people what they wanted
and it had an everlasting compounding effect
on the car's legacy.
But which one is truly the best one?
The R32 completely demolished its competition on track
and will go down in history for creating
the nickname Godzilla because of that success.
And puts racing success heritage in the DNA
of all the Skylines to come after it.
The R33 even further improved upon that recipe,
even though it didn't make the waves that the R32 did.
And then the R34 is just, well, it's an R34.
It's the fan favorite.
It's the tech giant. It's movie famous.
It connects with everyone in this universal
household name of JDM cars.
Being the ultimate forbidden fruit of the last few decades,
I think a lot of things get lost
in translation and hype can definitely get skewed.
But at the end of the day, the R34 generation Skyline
is the one that captured the imaginations
of so many tuners at the dawn of a new millennia.
The R34 alongside the Fast and Furious saga paved the way
for so many kids to become car enthusiasts.
It opened up the curtains for a lot
of Americans to appreciate JDM cars.
With sleek lines, a twin turbo RB26 inline-six cylinder
engine and an advanced all-wheel drive system,
the R34 became that forbidden object of desire
for all fans, young and old.
The R34 introduced Godzilla into pop culture,
changing the automotive scene all around the world
to be a JDM loving enthusiast
and breaking that barrier between the USDM,
EUDM and JDM peers worldwide.
But that about wraps it up for this one, guys.
The best Skyline from an all around perspective
is the R34 with the R32 following closely behind,
leaving the R33 at the end of the list,
but certainly not significant.
We will be making more videos just like this one.
So please leave a comment and let us know
what cars you guys want to see us cover next.
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I'm Sean. Seanb.fi on Instagram.
Thank you so much for watching.
Please don't hate me.
Peace.