You don’t have to do anything.
You don’t have to have 1,000hp. You don’t have to have a wide-body. You don’t have to have an engine or drivetrain swap. You don’t have to have a shaved and wire-tucked engine bay. You don’t have to have perfect fitment. You don’t have to have a custom trimmed interior. You don’t have to have flawless paint. You don’t have to have lap records. You don’t have to have an opinion.
You don’t have to do anything.
With that introduction, you might expect this feature to be in defence of an R32 Nissan Skyline GT-R with camber, stretched tyres and a slammed ride height. It’s not.
It’s an appreciation of this Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R with camber, stretched tyres and a slammed ride height.
There were almost 44,000 Nissan Skyline R32 GT-Rs produced between 1989 and 1994, including just over 11,000 examples of the ‘Series 2′ R32 GT-R, which this car featured happens to be just one of. For comparison, there were less than 17,000 R33 GT-Rs and less than 12,000 R34 GT-Rs manufactured.
It being relatively common, however, is still irrelevant.
One of the greatest aspects of car culture is the freedom to express our own individual tastes and preferences, however we see fit. Within reason, we don’t have to answer to anyone. While some countries will feature more judgement from fellow enthusiasts than others, it’s not exactly a huge barrier to seeing a project through to the end.
As is often the way with a conversation like this, we come around to the Japanese way of doing things. They don’t necessarily do anything better than the rest of the world when it comes to physically building a car, but their attitude towards other people’s builds is something we should all strive to replicate. The Japanese have created an environment which encourages people to build cars for themselves, without fear of derision or mockery from their peers.
Thankfully, it’s not something which is exclusive to Japan, and there are plenty of people who have the confidence to build what they want for themselves, without feeling obligated to tick boxes on a current trends list to satisfy others. Daniel and Kylie Price are two of these people.
When looking to understand any particular build, it’s most important to take the time to uncover a car’s intended purpose. Simply, what is this car trying to be? For Daniel and Kylie, a married couple from the UK now residing in Dubai, they wanted not only a car that they could drive, but something which brought them both the joy of machine, that certain je ne sais quoi that driving the right car brings us.
“We got the car in December 2018. Got it for cheap as it had a massive boost leak, which just happened to be an intercooler pipe which had popped off, and also the MAFs needed replacing,” Dan told me again over WhatsApp after my recent trip to the Middle East. “The car came to the UAE in 2007, but was sat in storage for most of its life. I think it was ran on the streets with no registration for a while, as you couldn’t register a right-hand drive car of that age when it was imported, something we have only just been able to do recently.”
“The first thing we did was a major service to get it running right. Then we put it on a dyno, and added fuel to get the AFRs correct for our fuel.”
The 2.6-litre inline-six was in a relatively mild state of tune when it arrived from Japan, featuring a chipped ECU, a full HKS turbos-back exhaust system and a front-mount intercooler. The only significant additions since it landed in the UAE have been a fuel controller along with boost and AFR gauges. It’s made 345hp at the wheels in its current state.
A subtle change was the removal of the divisive N1 vents on the front bumper, which gives the front of the car a much smoother look.
The HKS coilovers it arrived from Japan with were swapped out for HSDs, as the former items had seized after an unknown length of time in the car. It was only then that Daniel and Kylie turned their attention to finding the perfect period correct wheels for the car – Nismo LM GT1s by RAYS.
It took time, and by Dan’s own words they probably paid too much for them, but they ended up acquiring the set from the United Kingdom.
He explains that the wheels “came in a really rough state, but I was always going to re-lip them from their previous 18×9-inch +24 sizes. They were fully refurbished with new gold hardware, three-inch lips, new Nismo stickers, new billet centre caps, and the faces were changed from silver to white. They’re now 18×10.5-inches +5, and similar in style to the wheels found on the Nismo 400R. We built the wheels at home on our kitchen floor. They cost way too much, but anything else would have been way less fun, and nothing compares to the LM GT1s.”
The wheels are fitted with 245/35R18 rubber. For those of you choosing to be offended by a 245-section tyre on a 10-inch rim, don’t worry, they’re not permanently fused to the vehicle and can be changed should the owners want to. In fact, it’s perhaps the least destructive modification one can make relative to the overall impact a car can make.
Behind the wheels are 4-piston Trust/GREX Alcon front brake calipers with 355mm slotted discs.
Sitting into the stock GT-R seats, starting the car and slowly moving off, I was surprised by how well it rode. The roads may look idyllic in the UAE, but they rarely are.
While I did drive the car with due consideration for its ride height, I found it far more pleasant than I expected. There was certainly no shortage of forward traction (unsurprisingly), but the sand-covered corners prevented anything more than a cautious steer.
I just can’t help but marvel at how on-point this whole project is. Whether you like or dislike the direction is irrelevant – there was a clear vision for the car which was followed through on. It’s subtle and deceptively simple, with the end result being sublime, and hopefully something most can appreciate.
It does all of these things with owners that are perfectly able to appreciate and applaud other approaches to the same platform. That they’ve built this car one way, doesn’t take away from how someone else builds theirs. It’s entirely possible to be able to enjoy this and a contrasting, big-power, track-focused approach.
You don’t have to choose – enjoy them all.
Paddy McGrath
Instagram: pmcgphotos
Twitter: pmcgphotos
paddy@speedhunters.com
The BNR32 Nissan Skyline GT-R on Speedhunters
Cutting Room Floor
