Here's a Tour of a USA-Legal R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R

This is a 1999 Nissan Skyline GTR, better known to car enthusiasts as R34 GTR, despite endless pleas from car enthusiasts, this car was never sold in the United States, you can't get them

here

, only a few were imported

legal

ly and cannot. You can't import it anymore today, I'm

here

in Los Angeles, California with one of the few and first I'll show you a little bit of the history of the Skyline GTR. Now you know about the current GTR that has been sold in the United States. says for the last decade this is the model before that and was sold from 1999 to 2002.

Now before this there were a couple of others the r33 sold in the mid 90's and the r32 in the late 80's and early 90's. I had one. Of those and there were also a couple of Sky GTR models in the late 1960s and 1970s, but this one, the R34, is the one that everyone wants, the reason being video games and movies. I still remember playing Gran Turismo 2 when I was 12 and this was the coolest car in the game, then Too Fast, Too Furious came out when I was 15 and there wasn't a kid that went to see that movie that wouldn't want to own this car.

I spent all my birthday and money on mowing the lawn to buy a high quality auto art scale model of the r34 gtr in bayside blue this color

nissan

finally accepted the pressure and they brought the next generation gtr to the states and that was cool and we all loved it but we're also still a little I wanted this to be the last best gtr that we couldn't have and yet here it is in California today I'm going to take you on a

tour

of this horizon gtr and show you all of its interesting and cool quirks. features then i will take it out on the road and drive my childhood fantasy the r34 gtr and then i will give it a doug rating and for more of my thoughts on the r34 gtr for a full review click the link. next to visit autotrader.com oversteer I'm going to start over here with these tail lights.

These are some of the most famous taillights on all performance cars. If you are a car enthusiast, you already know this taillight pattern. There are a couple of unusual things about the taillights on this car, one of which is that when you press the brakes, the four red circles don't light up like I always thought, they're just the ones on the outside, the four circles do. they come on however like the tail lights when you turn on the headlights now the little orange circle on the inner ring is the turn signal and it obviously comes on when you turn on the turn signals or hazard lights on the bumper there are a couple of more lights you can You will notice that there is one red and one white, the white one is the reverse light, it comes on when you are in reverse and the strange thing is that there is only one reverse light in this car and it is offset to the right , you see the red one. light and that is the rear fog light.

Cars in Europe and Asia often have rear fog lights. You're supposed to turn them on in foggy conditions to let other drivers know you're there and that's it, the famous r34 gtr rear end. Next we move on to the rear wing. Now a picture of this car forever. I always knew it had a rear spoiler, but I never knew it was adjustable. Look at this. You can actually move the spoiler several degrees in any direction. For optimal track configuration, you can place it up, in the middle or down. After you have adjusted the wing you can lock it in place with a small screw, as you can see there are a couple of small holes where you can place it. keep it there in the middle up or down to lock the wing where you want it to come out of this end cap and you can put a screw through those holes and into the adjustable flap to hold it in place.

Who knew the wing on this thing fit? Obviously it doesn't go up and down like a Porsche, but this is an early adjustable wing. It's also worth noting that the position of this rear wing is absolutely terrible. It steals your rear visibility like crazy. It's directly in your line of sight. Modern wings. They are often higher to get out of rear visibility and obviously many cars also have lower fins. This one is right in the middle. There's something else about the back of this car that I've always loved. It has a rear wiper. Thats not all.

Those unusual hatchbacks, trucks, SUVs have rear wipers, but cars with trunks never have them. The only car in the US that I can think of that had a rear wiper and trunk is the evo so apparently it was a japanese thing and in fact it was a lot of japanese cars in the 80s and 90s had this, my r32 gtr had it. I had it and this car has it too, it even has a rear washer jet so you can wash the rear window whenever you want. Next, we move on to the trunk. Now you look inside.

The trunk and it's a pretty normal sized trunk and it looks pretty normal for a Japanese car of this era, but you'll notice there's a lot of stuff in here, well, usually there's a trim panel in there, but the trim panel is gone, so that I can show it. There are many ECUs in the trunk, they are here to distribute the weight, there is one in the front, there are four in the back, the third is that this helps balance the weight of the car. Now ECUs obviously control a lot of things and one of the things is rear wheel steering because this car has four wheel steering.

Four-wheel steering. This car is actually quite interesting at low speeds. The rear wheels turn opposite to the front wheels to give you a smaller turning circle and help you corner faster. At high speeds they turn at the same angle so you can make high-speed lane changes or other faster movements to do this job correctly. The four-wheel steering system uses, among other things, this yaw sensor. I love the warning. Besides this, don't fall, it's okay, little yaw sensor, thanks for the advice. Also interesting is the all-wheel drive system, which was very important when this car came out, a big car was basically rear-wheel drive until you needed it. and then it could send up to 50% of the power to the front wheels, which is quite common nowadays, perhaps more interesting than the function of the all-wheel drive system was the name by which it was called tessa ets pro and this was the acronym it meant. advanced engineering system and all-terrain all-wheel drive with electronic torque split if that's not the most complicated 90's Japanese acronym you could have come up with then I don't know what is, it's ridiculous Next we move on to the front of the gtr, there are a couple of elements worth highlighting, one is the badge in the middle of the grille.

You'll notice it doesn't say

nissan

, it says gtr, that was the factory badge, in fact this car didn't come from the factory with any Nissan badge. It wasn't a nissan, it was a gtr, that was the most important thing to understand, as a result, you will find several gtr badges, this one is on the back of the trunk, there are gtr center caps and the wheels, but there is no nissan. badge another interesting thing on the front of this car this is a very famous front end associated with this vehicle but here's something I didn't know these little lights on the bumper I always assumed they were fog lights they are actually turn signals I knew that the r34 gtr's turn signals were on the bumpers.

Now that you know, when you get into this car for the first time, the most interesting thing you will find is definitely the central screen, which left me totally amazed. I promise you'll want to see this. and remember that this car came out in 1999, which was almost 20 years ago. This is a sort of home screen and shows all kinds of different measurements. You can see some of them change in real time as I rev the engine and then press the mode button. and you can switch to a screen that shows the g forces again in real time, which would have been huge in 1999.

Press mode again and this screen will show you the last 30 seconds of several different vehicle measurements and is completely configurable so you can choose what you wish. I want to see, for example, here's the oil pressure and you can see the changes on the digital readout. I rev the engine and you can see the screen showing the last 30 seconds of engine revolutions. Interestingly, it almost allows you to see too much, for example who would want to see the last 30 seconds of water temperature, but you can, the next screen is called dual screen and it allows you to see two gauges at once, of course they are configurable.

Then you enter my favorite menu, it's called red zone and it allows you to adjust the levels on the home screen where the green bars turn red, I have lowered the boost one and now you can see the green bar turns red when I violate my settings maximum just set, then there's the upshift menu, you see this little light here on the side of the screen which is a shift light and it comes on when it's time to shift up, but here's the thing in the shift menu up, you can adjust where the maximum upshift should be and therefore where the shift light comes on and then by far the craziest element is the lap timer function, you see this little black button on the center console next to the gear lever.

Ok, press it and it will start timing your lap like a stopwatch. The second round begins when you press it again, like I just did. The amazing part is over here. To the left of the center console you see this cable so you can plug in your 1999 laptop and download all of your vehicle's data, including lap times and other measurements. Interestingly, one last item, I'm zooming in here so you can see the oil pressure. Do you realize it's around 1.8 or 1.9? Well, here's the normal oil pressure gauge on the instrument panel and it's reading almost three despite all that technology, Nissan couldn't get these things to read the same, which is really funny, but not that center display.

The only strange thing about the interior is that there are a couple of interesting quirks worth mentioning, starting with the gauge cluster, and the gauge cluster on this car is a Nismo accessory which is Nissan's in-house tuning company, so what the gauge cluster would have been installed by the dealer. When I bought the car now, my favorite thing about the gauge cluster is the tachometer. The tachometer on this car goes up to 11,000 rpm, although the owner tells me the fuel limit is at 8,000. But let's be honest. It's cool to see that now there are 11 to get to 11,000 rpm, they had to do zero to three thousand rpm, especially small ones, I guess you shouldn't care about that, why are you driving at 3,000 rpm anyway?

That's nothing. Another interesting quirk, obviously this car is right hand drive and that means the turn signals and wiper actions are switched, the turn signals are on the right, the wiper action is on the left, that's just It's true for right-hand drive cars. sold in Asia it is worth noting that right hand drive cars sold in Europe, the UK and Ireland for example will have it on the other side, like a normal left hand drive car the turn signal will be on the left and the wipers will be on the right, so when car manufacturers make right hand drive cars, it is country specific where the wipers and turn signals go.

It's also worth noting that that can be quite challenging when you're driving this car because you have to put it on. the turn signal and then turn on the windshield library, you have to keep in mind that the turn signal is on and is on the other side or else you will constantly forget another interesting item: this car has electric folding mirrors, which is Unusual, it's usually an item you associate with modern luxury cars, but this car has them. To activate them, you flip a small switch on the driver's door panel next to the power window switches and then the mirrors turn on.

They fold down, flip the switch the other direction and they fold outwards again, that's for all those times you're going to park your Skyline GTR on a narrow street, which can actually be a concern in tight areas in Japan. Another interesting checkpoint in that vicinity worth mentioning is just to the right of the address. Wheel that would be the headlight leveler. If you look over there, you'll see a small dial labeled zero through three. Now when they are at zero they are at their highest position and as you turn the dial they go lower and lower to shift. what your headlights illuminate on the road in front of you, another interesting element inside this car, like many cars, this car has a reverse lock, so you have to pull a small tab to put it in reverse, that's for make sure you don't accidentally shift into reverse when going six, that makes sense, but this car goes one step further because it has afirst gear lock and it is also a very unusual feature to be able to shift this car into first gear.

You have to pull up on that tab, the idea here is to prevent you from accidentally shifting into first when going into third which could cause serious engine damage, so every time you shift into first you have to pull up. that tab also worth mentioning is the seat material now this car has these tight little grippy sports seats that really hug you in the corners the owner tells me they are absolutely great and they are covered with these little rubber dots that are They look very strange, but the owner tells me that they are really functional.

The points really help keep you in place. No, it doesn't look as nice as leather or Alcantara, but they work in interesting ways. The rear seats are also covered with rubber dots, meaning your kids can stay put. instead when you take them through difficult corners on the race track, another interesting thing about the interior of this car to me is that it is so normal that if you look around the interior of this car, you will be surprised to find that Godzilla, the famous r34 gtr, it has a lot of things that look like they were taken from basically every other nissan from the late 90s and early 2000s, the window switches for example, the normal window switches on a Nissan, the door lock switch the door, the same, the door lock and the door handle, in fact the entire door panel looks like this. just from a normal NissanGo to the center of the interior and you will find that the climate controls appear to be from a normal Nissan.

The same goes for the vents and the emergency light switch. The turn signals and wipers are actually lifted from regular Nissan models. in the middle here is a center console with a normal amount of center console storage and just in front of it is a small cup holder. It's small but fits into Japanese size cups. It even has a normal glove box, although what's in the glove box is a bit small. less than normal, that's where you'll find the owner's manuals, which I love. I'm going to start with the owner's manual for the navigation system, which has this ridiculous 90's picture of some kind of Japanese city, it looks like a phone book, now it's the best.

The nice thing about this owner's manual is that when you open it it has all the instructions in Japanese but it also shows little pictures of the navigation system. If you go for example under some trees or in a tunnel, they show the navigation system as a little character, it is a small and cute one and it cannot, it cannot realize that it does not receive any signal, that is the manual of the navigation system. navigation in a Skyline GTR, the owner's manual, obviously, I can't read anything except the cover page that says. and it's a direct quote from horizon, the ultimate driving pleasure, which is a bit funny, also funny is the fact that on the back of the two manuals it says life together nissan, which must have been their slogan at the time , these are the owner's manuals you get when you get a Skyline GTR and look at the floor mats, you see that pattern, maybe you don't remember it, but everyone was making stupid patterns like that on fabrics and cars in the 1990s, on floor mats , door panels and seats, and that even continued with the famous nissan sky gtr talking about the mats, another interesting thing is the label on the mat, there is a small label that tells you how to install the mats in the car, that's not so unusual, the unusual part is that it's at the top of the format, so basically it's always visible and it's very ugly.

I guess you were supposed to get it done once you learned how to install the format, but this one still has the original mat label in place. Good luck finding another gtr with that Pebble Beach 2057 on this floor. Mat etiquette will be what the judges look for next first. You may have heard me mention that this car has back seats. Well, I think you know what's coming now. To get to the back, you fold the seats forward and then there's this little seat. belt right there and it's going to make it very difficult to get in the back, but you can just fold it out of the way and then you can get in very, very easily, very simple, come back here oh oh oh, that's not so bad, of course, the driver. now you have no place to sit now there is nothing interesting in the back seat of this car this car really wasn't designed for people to sit in the back or really have fun if they come back here the only interesting thing is that there is another carpet on the floor with that ridiculous pattern running all the way across the floor of the rear seats, okay, so now's the time to drive it, but first you're probably wondering how this Skyline GTR is here in the United States.

Well, me. I have a word for you engine emissions and EPA certification, you even have to go through crash tests. The cost is huge, more than a million dollars, but in the early 2000s, a company called Motorex saw the demand for the Skyline GTR and decided to overcome the obstacles. and they spent the money and yes, they even did a horizon crash test to prove it was roadworthy after a lot of work and a lot of money spent. Motorx got the US government to agree that they could sell the R33 GTR to customers in the United States.

After making certain modifications to make it

legal

on American roads, now Motorax also decided that they wanted to sell the R32 and R34 GTR, but that would have required a lot more work and a lot more money spent to certify those cars, so Motor . import those cars anyway and just tell the government they were r33 gtrs, then Motorex decided to just stop doing the work to get the cars certified in the first place, in the end there was a government raid on Motorex, they ceased operations, but some dozens of vehicles had been sold to American buyers who believed they were buying legally imported cars with certifications from the United States government and therefore, showing an unusual amount of generosity for a federal agency, the government allowed those buyers keep their cars, those cars were protected under the theory that Those buyers bought the cars thinking they had been properly certified and therefore those few dozen cars have a letter from the United States Department of Transportation saying that they are legal and will be legal forever.

As a result, these are basically the only legal gtrs on the horizon. in America they aren't 25 years old and this is one of those cars, probably one of only 12 to 14 motorex r34 gtrs in the entire country anyway, with that interesting history out of the way it's time to get the gtr out there. road, well, driving. the r34 gtr, this is cool, man. I'm just remembering, as I start driving this car, how much I hate driving right-hand drive vehicles. It's very annoying, people who drive them often say they get used to it, but I never do. I got used to it and I really hate being on this side of the car, it makes visibility very difficult.

I'm not a fan, I feel great and one of the reasons I feel good is that while I was filming this video. At an isolated elementary school on a Saturday morning in a parking lot on a cul-de-sac, several people came up to us and were talking to us about, you know, the gtr r34, they are so excited that you can't escape when you have this car. the attention is incredible, especially in this original color with these wheels, I mean, this is the grand

tour

er car, this is the car that we all knew when we were kids, now it had an r32, this car already feels tremendously, it just feels tremendously.

More substantially, Nissan rated both vehicles at 276 horsepower, which was the power rating that all Japanese car companies were giving their vehicles at the time as part of this agreement that they would not start getting into this proxy war that could cause people to get hurt. They all had 276 horsepower, but this car actually had more than 320. It feels like a real car. The R32 felt like an old car. This car feels like, you know, a modern vehicle feels very fast, so this car is stuck. This is how it would be. It would have been if you were in Japan in 1999 picking up one of these, I mean this is what it was of course all of these cars have been modified but this one is still in stock condition and so it's cool to experience this and you don't drive one that has 10,000 horsepower or whatever like most uh just a little bit of acceleration and uh and you can start to feel the power this car doesn't feel slow even though this car is 20 years old , it doesn't.

I mean it doesn't feel like a 20 year old car in that sense, it doesn't feel like, oh, this car was fast 20 years ago, turning the wheels easily, I mean, this is an easy car to drive, in reality. In many ways, it feels like a Nissan, except I'm sitting on the other side of the car. Yes, I always felt like my 32 was pretty fast, but this car is really amazing, it really gets going. It doesn't surprise me at all. By this I mean this car, this car was the king of all video games during the 2000s, of course it's fast.

One thing that really captivates me is how modern it feels, it doesn't feel uncomfortable, it really feels like you're sitting down. here in a fairly recent car and everyone is staring at you, uh, California has such a car culture, um, that will be part of it, but it's crazy to me how everyone knows the car, so sitting at a stop. When it starts, the car doesn't shake or rattle or make strange noises or anything like that. It feels like what you'd expect from a modern car. The clutch is very easy to operate. In fact it surprises me.

It has no notches. Enter at a normal pace. It's very easy to feel already where you know where to drop it where the capture point is now looking in the rearview mirror uh yeah that wing is really unfortunate uh actually it's funny there's a prius behind me the wing reminds me of the prius situation where the glass breaks when you look back and there's a part of the back that you just can't see that's exactly what it is, except it's bigger, it's very easy to shift gears in this car, very easy to press the clutch in this car, It's even easy to rev match, although I always have problems with rev matching and right hand drive cars because mentally I used to do this and not this, but over time I think you get the hang of it, how the car feels. tight uh it still feels really uh like it's well built and uh it doesn't feel like it's even close to being blown to pieces the ride quality is a little harsh, you can tell I'm hit by one of the things I'm What I What stands out is how normal this car is.

I'm just driving around Burbank and it doesn't feel like I'm driving Godzilla, one of the greatest cars of all time, and part of the reason I think that is. It's just that it actually ends up being a pretty good car, kind of a normal car if that's what you want it to be. I think one of the benefits of this car as portions is that you can drive them really fast if you want if it had a track to follow or something, but you can also just drive them, it's fast, the steering is very fast, the steering is fast in a modern car and actually that's kind of impressive there is a bit of vagueness in the center you wouldn't find this if this car came out today in the new gtr the steering is much more precise the moment you start turning it and in This car is a little less and that's how it was done forever until now, only now if cars become like everyone knows this car is so funny that there is someone in a Volvo C70 who just gave us the thumbs up well and one way man I'm probably going too fast god only knows it's really fast it's fun and it's addictive in a florida kind of way and really enjoy it because the sound is amazing and honestly it's not hard to generate power.

This is the kind of car where when you hit the ground it's like moving on because it's smooth, fast and sounds good. behind us is excited the two guys behind us are very excited, you know, I would go crazy if I saw one of these, especially in this pre-stock color, I mean, I would miss it, I would go crazy, huh, but I'm surprised how many people more. The funny thing is that every one of those people is a person who likes cars, that's a cool thing, right, this is not like that, if a normal person saw this car, they wouldn't care, except, oh, someone is driving by the right, that's strange, but all those are cars.

Everyone who is a car lover, no matter what you like, it's hard not to appreciate the R34 GTR, seeing it on the streets of America in California is a great feeling, and that is the R34 Sky GTR. I have always idolized this car sinceI was a kid and I always wanted to have one and I'm thrilled that I can at least spend the day with this now these motorx r34 gtrs because they are basically the only legal r34s in the country, they command a huge premium they sell for at least 80,000 or more, which is a bit much for me, but in seven years this car will be 25 years old and then the floodgates may open and I may have to import one to finally be able to match that scale model.

I had as a kid, anyway, on Doug's score, starting with the weekend and style categories. I love the R34 GTR, but let's be honest, the only reason we think this car looks cool is because we think this car is cool, it's not classically beautiful. or attractive and gets only a 6 out of 10. Acceleration is from 0 to 60 in 4.5 seconds. I told you it's a modern, fast car and that gives it a 7 out of 10. The handling is good in flat corners and the steering is nice, but it's an old car, it's not small like a Miata and it has some vagueness in the steering. center.

It gets a 7 out of 10. The cool factor is an easy 10 out of 10, especially in the US right now and if you don't agree, you're crazy. It's also very tall, this car led the Japanese revolution in the early 2000s where we all told the Japanese car companies that we wanted their high performance cars that they were saving for Japan and it was the interest in this car that paved the way for the WRX, the STI and the EVO. and eventually the r35 gtr I always say the importance category basically measures if you would have the car in a museum and my car museum would definitely include an r34 gtr, it gets a 9 out of 10.

Added up and the total score for the weekend is 39 out of 50, which puts it right up there with some all-time greats including the Lamborghini Countach, it deserves it in the everyday categories starting with features, the horizon is fine, but even with its crazy screen it's not as well equipped as modern cars and gets a 4 out of 10. The next step is comfort, it is a little hard but not tiring and gets a 5 out of 10. The quality is high. The Skyline's engine is known for its reliability until you start trying to get 900 horsepower out of it and the interior is okay, but neither is exceptional and gets a 6 out of 10.

Practicality is next. Trunk space is decent. but not exceptional, however the horizon gets a little boost here for having a back seat and gets a 4 out of 10. Finally, this value which is really hard to rate, I always rate the car in front of me and in this case these Motorx cars are really expensive for what they are, especially considering that the import of the R34 GTR will be legal in a few years. It gets a 6 out of 10, but I'll probably feel differently when Japanese market cars start getting much cheaper. Add it all up and the total daily score is 25 out of 50 tying it with the e46 m3.

Add it all up and the total excavated score is 64 out of 100, which means. It scored higher than any other car for its age, I guess it makes sense after all, this is Godzilla