When it was launched it was called the World’s most advance car by the Press. Rumors have it that the Skyline’s engineers had been told to out Porsche Porsche. The car was launched in Europe at the extremely challenging Nurburgring circuit in Germany. It was soon clear that Nissan had succeeded in producing the world’s most able road car, for the machine was proving capable of running Porsche 928s ragged on the circuit. Like many other great road cars, the Skyline’s technical recipe was simple enough. It had a powerful turbo charged engine connected to a four wheel drive transmission. With typical Japanese thoroughness, however, Nissan had improved on the basics. The straight six engines, though old, gained a new 24 valve head and a pair of ceramic turbo charged. Power, claimed to be 280 bhp, was actually more like 300 bhp. Even more complex was the electronically controlled four wheel drive, which used numerous sensors to work out how to split the engine’s torque between the front and rear wheels to deliver the maximum amount of horsepower to the road in all conditions.
Based on clever multi link suspension front and rear, the Skyline chassis also used an intelligent four wheel steering, which operated according to the car’s cornering state. The car also looked great in a menacing way, the two door body livened up with massive blistered wings, a deep air dam and large boot spoiler. The remarkable Skyline became the choice car for those in the know about the fastest way to travel across country.
