The Skyline GT-R R34 is a fan favorite in the JDM and automotive community. It’s a dream car for many car enthusiasts, myself included, but there are a lot of little quirks and secrets about this car that not many people know about.
1.) Wangan Blue
The iconic Bayside Blue color of the Skyline GT-R R34 was not originally called “Bayside Blue”. Tamara-san (Nissan product manager at the time) wanted the now iconic blue to be called Wangan Blue. He was inspired by the Wangan-sen (Bayshore Route) Nissan forced him to switch to Bayside Blue to avoid any Nissan affiliation with the Mid-Night Club which would be disbanded in late 1999 following a multi-car accident shortly after the debut of the R34. .
2.) Certain R34 GT-Rs can be legally imported into the United States:
Contrary to popular belief, it is not 100% illegal to import and own a GT-R R34 in the United States. No, I’m not talking about the Motorex Scandal R34 GT-Rs that have been discontinued by the US government. These are the ones you can import using the Show and Display import clause. These two cars are the 1999 Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 V-Spec Early Model Limited Edition, which is a Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 Midnight Purple II that was built at the start of R34 production. The other is the 2002 Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 M-Spec Nur. This model was added to the list of approved shows and displays in early 2017, so if you have deep enough pockets for one of those 250 examples, buy them before Japan. and Canada is catching up and prices are going from the ceiling to the unattainable.
3.) VQ30DETT GT500 Engine:
Okay, this one might be a little more well-known, but still interesting. When the 2002 JGTC season rolled around the GT500 RB26DETT was struggling to keep up with completion so halfway through they switched to their new VQ30DETT race engine which caused mixed emotions as it was weird to driving a now-famous engineless Skyline GT-R, but at the same time it was a better engine that gave the long-awaited good results. This decision allowed the 2003 Xanavi R34 GT-R race car to win the following year.
4.) The even more special Z-Tune:
So the Z-Tune was and is a very unique and special car. However, there’s one in particular that’s even rarer than the limited production run of 20 models, and no, it’s not the prototype that’s locked away in Nismo’s own Omori factory. It’s Z-Tune #ten. What makes this one so special? It is the only one not painted Z-Tune Silver (KY0). That’s right, not all Z-Tunes are painted in the special Z-Tune Silver color. Z-Tune #ten remained the same color at the request of the customer. This color was Midnight Purple III (LX0). Apparently, the original owner of this particular Z-Tune argued with Nismo for about a year about leaving the Midnight Purple III car before Nismo finally relented and left the color alone. It’s appeared for sale once or twice since then.
5.) The Skyline GT-R R34 was meant to be a radically different car:
So in this one I intend to do a more in-depth article, but it was very surprising not to post in this article. The R34 GT-R would have been a very different car had Nissan had better circumstances at the time. Would have swapped the RB26DETT for some kind of V6 (shocking, I know!?) But I’ll talk about that later.
Thanks for reading!
These are my 5 facts you (probably) didn’t know about the iconic Nissan Skyline GT-R R34. Did you know some of these facts? If so, what are they? Let me know in the comments. Don’t forget to like this article and follow me for more content like this.