Under a grey tarp in the corner of the Sumo Power/JR Motorsport factory was a little piece of Nissan history, a dusty but beautiful early '80s 2-door coupé DR30 Skyline.
Parked up next to the two brand new race-prepped GT-Rs, it was in stark contrast to the high-tech engineering of the 2010 GT1s.
Sumo Power boss Andy Barnes filled in the details: "The car used to belong to the director of Nissan GB. Each year he would import a Japanese car; in 1987 he imported this one – it's been in Europe ever since."
"We bought it around three years ago after it had passed through a few hands. It was in a real state, so we started restoring it bit by bit."
"The body has been repaired and painted, and the engine and running gear made mechanically sound. It's not a full restoration, but it's road legal and lovely to drive."
"It was never sold here – we think it's the only one of this model in the UK, if not the whole of Europe. We have it as a piece of Skyline history."
The interior has been tidied up and looked in great condition: authentically period with cloth seats and those sharp angles on the dash. I like the 'propeller' Skyline logo on the wheel boss, the same as on the front grill.
The DR30 was a step up from earlier models with their pretty basic cabins: here you get electric windows, air-conditioning and power steering.
The R30 is credited with rejuvenating the Skyline brand in the early 1980s. The doors on the two-door coupé don't feature pillars and have roll-down quarter windows for the rear-seat passengers so you can open up all the side glass.
Under the hood is a 2.0L 12-valve, 6-cylinder fuel-injected turbo unit pushing out about 145hp.
The engine bay had obviously had a lot of work done: not quite as clinically clean as the GT1s of course, but impressive nonetheless!
The car has been sitting idle for some time – it didn't look like it had been out from under the cover for a while… But nothing that half an hour of polishing couldn't fix.
The car's biggest fan was definitely our own Rod Chong. There was a lot of stroking going on – maybe a little too much to be honest…
I think he's still there, trying to work out how he could ship it back to Canada. All for the sake of Speedhunting, of course…
Jonathan Moore