Well approaching 30yrs old and I decided this year was as good a year as any to have midlife crisis and finally get hold of the car I've always wanted. A Nissan Skyline. After having owned it for six months I thought I'd share my thoughts with other potential buyers of an R33 which is the most popular and more importantly affordable model with my generation so grab a coffee, sit back and see what you think.
I've researched into these cars for over a year now and fell in love with them since getting my grubby mitts on one in GranTurismo on the playstation1five years ago and seeing how tuneable it was which is pretty much where everyone else in my generation first had a shot in one hehehe!. That was the extent of my knowledge on them and to be honest is pretty much everyone elses admission of knowledge when I talk to them about it. That, and having seen the R34 with NOS purge valves on fast n furious. Well now the time has finally come for me to own one and I got hold of an R33gts-t and I am COMPLETELY smitten with it despite the ups and downs which I'll go on about later on.
First things first - the car I got hold of WASNT original specification and to be honest you'll be very hard pushed to find any skyline that hasn't been amended in some way for better performance, style and looks, safety or reliability or all of the above. They are cars that are very easy to tune - almost lego-kit in their bolt-on-ability in places!
Heres a lowdown on my car and its general look, feel and ride:
Performance & Handling. Bloody hell I've had this car since January so coming up to six months and it still scares the living daylights out of me - 0-60 takes about 6seconds off standing start. It can hit the end of the speedo (180kmh approx 110mph) in 3rd gear and when I put it in fourth it STILL pulls at 0.7bar of boost and onto 140mph plus. The most frightening part is just how much torque the car has at any time - you just put the foot on the floor, and whoosh the turbo kicks in and the car lurches forward - all of sudden overtaking uphill just isn't scary or a slow process! We recently went out on a gtr owners meet and I kept up with the gtr (just about) on a road (he was going easy on me it had to be said) but at the end he mentioned that we were doing 140mph on that road for a period of time so I had a good idea of how fast the car was going from that point even though my speedo read otherwise!! The crazy thing is you can be in fifth gear, cruising along at 100mph then just drop a cog and floor the pedal and the car takes off letting you fly past cars in front so its got power in realms of speed 90% of drivers will never ever use even if they own one. I've only used that grunt twice and both of those times were speedy runs out on quiet and very straight roads. I dread to think what a Gtr is capable of! Handling is nothing short of fantastic - that may be down to the low profiletyres
on mine but if your gonna get one chances are you'll be picking one up with 17inch or higher alloy wheels and tyres to match so you'll get a good handling quality on the road like mine does. The Gts-T is rear wheel drive too so you've got to be careful on roundabouts and very careful on any road in the wet with low profile tyres and RWD but in dry weather it'll shock you how fast you can enter a roundabout and come out clean n dry from it much to the shock of the person entering the roundabout in front of you who thought 'he'd just nip in there'.
Tuning: You've heard of a Skyline and you'll be aware how ridiculously tuneable these cars are - however the 900-1000bhp figures are for mostly garages or millionaires with 100k+ to throw at the necessary people to achieve this goal. My own Gts-T is just shy of 290-300bhp using a performance exhaust, decat pipe in place of catalytic converter and an induction kit and I'm aiming for a goal of 350bhp or a little over which is a stupid amount of power in a car like that especially if you've never driven anything turbo'd before. I have lowered adjustable suspension which I set to a soft ride for round town driving but toughen it up when out on a run. Mine also came with an air flow controller which allows me to lean off air/fuel ratio getting the boost to come on tap earlier but I've barely toyed with it to be honest - the car is scary enough. People looking to get one would do well to look into getting a new ecu (apexi powerFC are most common) and getting it retuned for british fuel and wotnot - this would cost close to £1000 (anything from £350-£650 for the new ECU and then about £300-£400 to have it fully mapped at a professional tuning garage) so if considering buying one this is a modification you will almost certainly want to do if looking for more power from it (who isn't!) so look into getting this extra £1000 from somewhere too.
Style, Looks and Response: oh come on its timeless in whatever guise, R32, R33 or R34 - it looks amazing from any angle - its sporty looking yet has the size of an exec car. There are a plethora of bodykits and goodies out for it but to be honest you can put a set of 17inch rims on it and it'll look the business straight away. The afterburner rear lights are very original looking and are almost hypnotic to any driver behind you (and there'll be plenty haunting your blind spot admiring)... lookin in my rear view mirror I'm forever seeing people just oggling away and pointing to the back of it whilst their mates in the other car seats look on with tongues hangin out their mouths.
Around town: Around town its a real head turner, mine is heard long before its seen not with a loud corsa-backbox-burble but a deep bassy "roar" which comes from a combination of the backbox, the humm of the cooling fan at the front, and the induction gently hissing away under the bonnet. Most peoples heads will turn 50yards before you get to them and passing them you'll see ogling heads pointing. I've come back to the car to find kids taking snaps with mobile phones and making mini video clips to show their mates. I've also had people go past and shout "w**ker" and "c*ckend" which isn't really nice but thats the kind of response porsche and ferrari owners get so you have to wonder just how jealous those people are. Just be prepared for a mixed heap of responses from people but mostly positive :D
I'm always happy to natter to people about it and I usually get a "wow thats such an awesome car I'd love to see what they can do" to which I usually reply "hop in" and take em for a spin - its the biggest eye opener I can give someone (it certainly was when I were taken out first time in one so I try and do the same for anyone taking an interest in it) and every time someone climbs out they've got a huge smile on their faces ready to sell a bodypart. The best bit is when I tell them that it ISNT a GTR ...thats when their faces hit the floor and they're ready to do owt to get one!!
Interior, Comfort and practicality: This is one of my faviourite things about the car beside EVERYTHING else hehe - the comfort of the ride for ALL passengers - it will seat two tall people in the front very comfortably and 2 in the back with plenty of legroom (I'm told by the wife n her friend). I'm 6ft3inches and really enjoy the drive out in it. every time I get in its like climbing into a new car. dont let other people comment about the interior too - its not exactly bling or metallic but its clean, simple and surrounds the driver enough without smothering them like a TVR Tuscan or Supra and the passenger side has lots of legroom too. One nice feature is the back seats are slightly lower down meaning you can see OVER peoples heads in the rear view mirror - its things like that that make you realise this car has been carefully though out and this was ten years ago! :) Buttons and controls are all handily accessible by the driver, the position of the cd player feels a little out the way, slightly too low I think - I sometimes have to take eyes off the road but I think thats the naff cd player I have in it to be honest more than owt else otherwise I'm sure I could just flick the volume/next track buttons whilst keeping hands on the gearstick. Indicator stalk is on the right which is true of most jap cars but this works really well, your hand is never off the gearstick and you can flick the indicators whilst dropping a cog at the same time. Theres a handy central storage box which is a gearstick arm rest too - great for storing cds, cigarettes and pet mice (last one was a joke!) :) Lots of goodies come with the car as standard too, fully elec. side mirrors including foldaway option which I really do love. elec. windows, good heater that can warm front, back, top, bottom you name it and airconditioning which whilst being a godsend in ridiculously hot weather (dont help that my car is black) can affect fuel economy so use sparingly or be prepared to fill up more :) The boot space is fantastic - enough to store a good sized shopping trip (my record is 14bags or a couple of medium sized suitcases. I dont know if they ever came with tow bars for caravans and the like but if they're able to be fitted I wouldn't worry about it pulling one although the fuel bill might be a bit ridiculous! As for families, if they can accept the 2door sports car nature and are happy to nip in and out and getting the kids in and out the car will enjoy it and its space - there are 4door versions about but they're rare and quite simply dont look sporty enough - far more practical as a family car tho :)
Economy: Okay this is the one I want to gripe about but I live in Britain but I'm not going to.. we're forever being rogered by fuel prices and they will continue to do so until every brit decides sod this and moves to NZ or the US where its a little more affordable! Basically the car is giving me about 22mpg around town and 30mpg on motorways but it does depend on whether or not your booting the car and I've notice load makes a big difference - 4people in the car with luggage and you can watch the needle drop massively inside a 1hour mway drive doing 70mph.
Basically getting one of these cars comes down to accepting thats its gonna cost in fuel prices - I do about 15miles to work and 15miles back and 35quid can get me back and to to work Monday to Friday with fun spirited driving (ie: lots of blasting it up to 70mph mixed with the 30mph zone dawdling) ..considering my old escort would take 30quid a week and felt like it was incapable of overtaking a sleeping cow theres really no competition - I'd have this car as a daily driver anyday.
Reliability and Maintenance: Reliability is fantastic it just ticks over and idles beautifully and has done every day since I got it and I've took it out for some blasts thinking that cant have done it any good but apparently the RB nissan engines are fantastically strong blocks and come out of nissan well under what they're capable of putting out in bhp terms so dont worry about popping one anytime soon unless you stick a bigger turbo under the hood! I've done a full service on mine, namely changing oil, oil filter, fuel filter, air filter (sports panel filter) and all auxiliary belts (pas belt, aircon belt, fan belt) - the whole lot came to about 100quid and that includes a sports panel filter from apexi) I was able to do these service parts myself with alot of help (ie: all of it hahaha!) from a friend who also owns a skyline so I saved myself a small fortune as apparently going to nissan wont work out cheap. The difference it made to its driving was great though especially the fuel filter which is often overlooked even by garages giving you a service. All the parts we changed were barely any tougher than a normal car and in some cases far more accessible due to the spacious bonnet. Back hurt a bit as the car is quite low down hehe! I've also changed the alternator as the bearings went in my other one and it seems the bearings are about to do the same in the 2nd hand one I got - however they are repairable and I got the bearings fixed in my original one for 40quid and its running great now so thats cool - barely more than any mondeo would cost to fix up! i've changed the tyres which wasn't cheap but I'm on 17inch low profile bridgestone all weather sports tyres which work out about 150quid each. There are a host of extra early warning features to mechanical parts too - little things like metal shims on the brake pads that start to scrawp when pad material is low and clutches start making little whirring noises long before going kaput - little bits of thought that let you know the car is wearing away but you've got time to get it sorted out - its very cool! Leather interior (gaiters on gearstick and handbrake) got fixed - another 40quid but looks a sightload better now for it :D Overall I'm very happy with the car - the most important bit - namely the engine is going like a dream so I know I can get to work and back in one piece. There is a fantastic fanatic following for anyone who owns a skyline - you'll never have a problem finding a spare part for sale online or getting a new modification toy for it too and if your a home mechanic you'll find the car barely any more difficult to fix than a ford or vauxhall.
Final words: Accept that at the end of the day your buying a performance car and its gonna cost in fuel, insurance and repair/maintenance and you will smile every time you climb into your r33 skyline. If you can afford a Gtr good on ya - get one you'll not regret it (they're very very scarily fast and will eat most things alive on the road!) but if your after a very fast single turbo car that stands out from the crowd, is very practical and nothing like as bad to fix/repair as people would have you believe then get a Gts-T.
I hope I have given a good insight and an interesting first review - if anyone feels I should give more info in areas then post a comment and I'll amend it for you.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
4 X 4, Crossover SUV - Four Wheel Drive (4x4) - 6 Speed Manual Gearbox - 2184 cc - Max Speed: 112 mph - 136 bhp - Diesel - Available Trims: SE, Sport, SVE, T-Spec
hey everyone - thanks for the comments and welcomes - I've amended the review slightly, tweaked my grammar and punctuation and added little extra bits in there too that hopefully give a little more insight.
crutchley_am 15.06.2006 15:22
A great first review, though I think you could have done with including a piece about the car's practicality (from my own experience I know it's not as impractical as your typical two-seater, but it's hardly a Volvo estate either).
very helpful by (90%):
helpful by (10%):
