Why a Good Godzilla is Worth Seven Times What It Was Ten Years Ago
Godzilla Version R33 Changed the Game Again
Then the game changed again when the bigger, broader, longer, 200 lb heavier E-BCN R33 GT-R arrived in ’95. Still 20 lb heavier, the V-Spec version packed a sharper AWD tune. Not that the newfound mass made much of a difference with the R33 a full 22 seconds quicker than its predecessor around the Nürburgring Nordscheife. The V-Spec was another 2 seconds swifter too.
The next special edition was the GT-R LM Limited — a 188-off run of an aesthetic package to celebrate Nissan’s Le Mans GT1 foray. But the next special Skyline GTR special was, well, pretty special! Nissan’s most extreme R33 was the big-turbo bored and stroked 400 hp RB-X GT2 Nismo 400R A motorsports monster it had a widebody kit and Nismo forged wheels too. Yet only 44 of the planned 100 were built to close off the R33 era.
The all-new Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 (below) arrived in 1999. Slighter, if slightly heavier, its 327 hp RB 26 now turned its ATESSA E-TS all-wheel drive and all-wheel steering via a Getrag 6-speed manual. The V-Spec version added extra aero and the V-Spec N1, of which only 38 were ever built, took it even further. V-Spec II added even more aero and rubber. An M-Spec version followed in 2001, while a luxury version of that car added all the trimmings too.
And then it Was All Over
Skyline GT-R was made even more famous when the legendary yellow Pennzoil car won the all-Japan GT championship. And then the 2002 pinnacle V-Spec and N-Spec Nür arrived to celebrate the Skyline GT-R’s Nürburgring production car lap record. 1003 were built in total. And alas, that, as they say, was all.
Nissan’s Renault Alliance under Carlos Ghosn brought globalization and the Japan-only GT-R brand was officially retired. Godzilla was dead.
In its death throes however, NISMO conceived the ultimate GT-R Z-Tune. But it took two years to get approval to build, by when GT-R production had long ended. So, Nissan bought up 18 used GT-Rs, stripped them to bare metal, seam welded the shells and hand rebuilt them carbon-rich from the ground. Powered by a Le-Mans pedigreed 500 hp 2.8-litre Z2 mill, 17 cars were sprayed a special Z-Tune Silver, but one remained the iconic GT-R Midnight Purple 3.
That special run of ultimate Skyline GT-R Z-Tunes made for the perfect send-off for the iconic Godzilla. The Japanese supercar that the rest of the world could not have. Paul Walker’s 2Fast 2Furious movie GT-R gave the brand further reverence as the connected generation became ever more obsessed with this mysterious car the Japanese kept to themselves.
The Crusher Tragedy
Added to that, the US has a watertight ban on used vehicles younger than 25-years. Still, there have been several futile attempts to bring Skyline GT-Rs in. Tragically that more than often ended with the illegally attained GT-Rs in the crusher, and none ever made it across.
Roll on to 2007 and the all-new Nissan GT-R’s launch to the waiting world at the Tokyo Motor Show. GT-R was born again. But it was not a Skyline, no matter how sketchy anyone’s attempts have been to prove otherwise. Which means that the R34 will always remain the last of the true Skyline GT-Rs. And they remain wholly exclusive as you still cannot bring one in. And that has led to a most intriguing conundrum…
Costing $70 to 80,000 new in today’s money, GT-R was never cheap when new. By 2009 with the new GT-R on sale, old Skyline GT-Rs were still selling for around $40,000 on auction, which is more or less where values remained. Until 2015, that is, when two Nür-Spec cars, an N and a V sold for around $100K. Then a year later, the gavel dropped at the equivalent of $160K on another Skyline R34 V-Spec 2 Nür GT-R on auction.