Just 197 of these cars were made in 1973, making it one of the rarest machines ever. It looked great and retained the same power as the Hakosuka, but it would have neither success on the track nor in the showroom. Like many Japanese cars of the time, the Kenmeri somewhat resembled a shrunk down American fastback. ![]() They called it the Kenmeri, a nickname taken from an ad campaign that featured the fictional Ken and Mary roaming around Japan having adventures in their regular Skyline sedan. High-performance engines and their thirst for fuel fell out of favour almost overnight, and this next GT-R would be extremely rare, driven right to the edge of extinction. The Second GenerationĪs in the US, the Japanese motoring industry was hit hard by the fuel crisis of the 1970s. It would score nearly fifty racing victories, becoming a coupe in the process. ![]() Nissan had purloined the motor out of their Prince R380 (the car that finally beat the Porsches at the track), and this first Skyline was soon on its way to establishing a dominating racing presence. However, under those reserved four-door looks was a 2.0L 160 hp straight-six that was strong-running and tough enough to go the distance. There's a pretty simplicity to its lines now, but back then the first GT-R didn't look like much. They called it Hakosuka, literally box Skyline. Not satisfied with a merely sporty sedan Nissan stole the engine out of a dedicated racecar and made one of the most victorious racing sedans ever built. They also intended to continue racing, and the story of what happened next is roughly analogous to that of the first BMW M5. Prince was soon swallowed up by Nissan in the mid-1960s, but the latter would keep the Skyline name in production as it was so popular. The crowd roared their approval – the legend was about to hatch. Imagine the scene at the second-ever Japanese Grand Prix when the homely, boxy, humble little Skyline sedan managed to pass a sleek Porsche 904GTS to lead a lap. This more than doubled the output of this early Skyline racer, giving it enough steam that perhaps a little racing was in order. Prince also had a large luxury sedan called the Gloria, so they plucked the 2.0L straight-six out of it and stuffed it under the hood of the Prince. What happened next is the same story that's been repeated over and over again throughout the history of the automobile. A small company with modest output, Prince was relatively sporting for a Japanese automaker, and in their Skyline – a small sedan named after Japan's winding mountain roads – they had a lively if slightly underpowered machine. ![]() ![]() We begin our story in the 1950s with a rather unassuming blue sedan, the Prince Skyline 2000-GT. They called the monster Godzilla, but it had another name too: the Nissan GT-R. Its flashing eyes, its bulky form, its rasping cry – all these things would pass into legend. Only the foolish resisted, those who would rather survive did the sensible thing and let it pass by. It came from the East, so they say, a huge and mighty beast that breathed fire and destroyed all in front of it.
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