People from all over the world, when they see a car like this get imported to the US, there's a lot of people that are upset because they say, "Hey, it needs to stay in Japan, right? You're taking away the heritage." But we're actually really not. What we're doing is we're preserving it because this was unloved. This was sitting outside its entire lifetime until I bought it. All of us went through so much just to get these cars here in the US, to drive them in the US, because they were just never intended to be here.
And it's a novelty for us and it's so much fun to drive right-hand drive, but for normal people, they look at it and they're like, why would you do that?
Like it's like a torture or it's not fun for them, you know? It's like awkward. But for us, it's the best. It just feels special and that's what I love about it.
One more episode of Jay Leno's Garage. Today here at Nissan Motors Skyline Day. Yes, everyone must go. Ladies and gentlemen, we have seven generations of the Nissan Skyline, one of the most legendary cars in Japanese history. You know, this is exciting to me because when I was a little kid, the big thing was, well, Japanese cars had no heritage. They hadn't been around long. You know, MG, Triumph, Bentley, these all had 30, 40, 50 years of history. And the Japanese cars were sort of brand new, but I'm really old now. We've seen them have amazing cars. The Toyota GT, certainly I had a Datsun 1600. That was one of my first. The 240Z, but probably I think the one that everyone seems to like the most is the Nissan Skyline. I want to bring in a gentleman here who is probably a fanatic, as fanatic as anybody I know about these cars. Larry Chen. Larry, come in. You know him, the legendary photographer. Shoots every car from every manufacturer, but these are the ones you love, isn't it?
Yeah. And for me, the Skyline is something that I think you can relate to. You just want what you can't have, right? And the beauty about these Skylines, none of them were meant for the US market, right? Every owner, every person that owns all of these cars, including my car that we'll see later, we went out of our way to get it to the US or somehow obtain it and drive it and enjoy it in the US.
Now, this is the first generation, correct?
Yeah. So, this is the first generation of Skyline under the Nissan badge. It was Prince before, but this is...
Oh, that's right. It was Prince. That's right. We should explain because when Nissan came to America, they came here with the Datsun. They weren't sure it would make it in the American market. And Nissan, although a hallowed name in Japan, was not known here.
Yeah. I kind of feel like they were maybe worried that the Nissan name would be something that's more difficult to pronounce or something that's not recognized.
Well, initially when they came with the first generation Japanese cars, they weren't used to going 70 miles an hour on a freeway and there were reliability issues and the parent company did not want to hurt the world brand. So they named it Datsun, which was a nice pleasant sounding name. And then when the Datsun 240Z came along, then by that time they realized, okay, we have a sports car. Americans love us. There's a guy. Then they became Nissan. There was no other change other than the name. But they were just afraid that if Datsun did not make it or became a... because don't remember Subaru had that, what is it called, the 360 or something, that early one that was really unreliable. Japanese stuff did not have the durability of American stuff yet, at least at that point, you know, and that's what they worried about and that's why they changed the name. I was honored to have Mr. K come here. Do you know Mr. K? Mr. K was a Japanese gentleman who loved America. He loved hamburgers and hot dogs and music and he had just the American lifestyle. And when Nissan had like the Laurel and all these other cars, he thought, no, Americans want names like Z, X, you know, Americans like... he was a very... I think he lived to be 106. He was 100 when he came here and although in a wheelchair he was very... oh look, he's all excited about every car, you know. I mean it was really fun to meet somebody at that age that still had such enthusiasm and excitement for a product, you know, especially a car, you know, and it was really a true honor and when he passed away it was a very sad day but it was a true honor to have him here because he understood the American market. I think he was Japanese to his soul, but he just liked the freedom and just the hugeness of America and how big the drinks were and all this kind of stuff, you know. So, it was really interesting to see how much heritage there is here. And I must say, like almost every other vehicle, the first generation is always the purest to me. This one, of all these cars, these are all lovely and nice. We have four more later, you'll see in a minute. This one appeals to me the most because it just looks like the first attempt. The clean lines, the look of it, the black wall tires. I love those Japanese fender mirrors. They really look cool. Those are on my Cosmo. Let's start with this one.
Yeah. So, this one pretty much started it all for the GTR brand. The first GTR was actually a four-door, but for whatever reason, there's not many of them in the US. There's rumors that maybe there's five or so here. I understand one did come to the garage at one point, but the one that you see most often and the one that people refer to when they think about the first GTR is the Hakosuka, and this is a very, very good example, pretty much 100% bone stock 1971 Hakosuka GTR.
And let's say what we have, six-cylinder motor?
It's called an S20 engine, something that's super coveted. One of the main reasons why unfortunately this never made it to US shores is because of the engine. This was double the price of a Nissan Z. And as you've mentioned before, around that time the stigma around Japanese cars. Why would I pay this much for a Japanese luxury sports GT car?
So I'll show you the engine.
And 2 L was huge in Japan, right? That's a big motor even by European standards. Well, at that time the 240Z, you know, 2.4 L, 24 engine was, I wouldn't say more reliable, but easier to deal with. Right.
Right. For them to make 160 horsepower out of an inline 6, 2 L, triple Mikuni Solex carbs, it was difficult to keep running in tip-top shape.
Boy, this is about the cleanest example as I've ever seen. Those beautiful headers. Boy, those are just lovely. And that's factory pretty much.
Yeah, this is 100% factory. I wanted to bring a couple variety of cars for you to see. So, while this is a 100% bone stock version of the Hakosuka Skyline GTR, that is the four-door version of a Hakosuka, it's not a GTR, but this is the owner's interpretation of what a modern, I guess, resto'd four-door GTR would look like.
It's safe to say this is heavily modified.
Yeah. So, the owner did have a chance to drive a two-door version, but he prefers a four-door version. It's more his personality and it fits him better. And this is pretty much one of the most wild builds.
It is pretty wild. I like the thinking here. Your bumper is also your oil cooler.
So, this is kind of like a Kaido racer style, which a lot of the Japanese tuners around that time, what they did was they saw what the race cars were doing on the track. You want to cover your headlights so you don't get glass all over if you actually get hit. So, this is something that the street tuners brought over to the street. So, they block the headlights, kind of gives it a different look, and then they exaggerate the oil cooler. This is actually functional though.
All right. Now, do these pop off at night time or is that just...
Yes. Or you just... if you need to drive at night, you can take them off.
Oh, just take them right off. Okay. All right. Very good.
You know, I like the Q-ship sort of look. Q-ship is a term the British use for a vehicle that looks unassuming and stock but will blow the doors off of just about anything around. The Mercedes 6.3 was a Q-ship, certain Jaguars, and that's a perfect example of it.
So, there's got to be a drinking and driving joke here somewhere. I don't know if you had a chance to see the shift knob.
Oh, look. It's the beer. Oh, yeah. The cops would love that here.
So, this is... inline 6, 2.7 L RB engine out of essentially like an R33, like a 1995 to 1998.
So that's twin cam, two valve.
Instead of a twin turbo setup, this is a big single turbo now.
So the way it sits right now, it makes like 460 horsepower to the wheels.
Okay. So this is a four-valve engine then, correct?
Yes, this is a four-valve engine.
All right. Great. Wow. Makes a lot of horsepower and it makes a lot of turbo noises.
Yeah. Yeah. It's great.
Next up is a 1973, what we call Ken Mary. And while this was not a GTR, this is again the owner's interpretation of the wildest version of this car.
And what do you call it? A Ken Mary.
It's called a Ken Mary. And in the advertisements in Japan, they had like two characters. They had a Ken, which was a male person, and then they had a Mary, and it's like they would drive around, have fun in this. It was just hilarious to see the ads from that era.
The styling is kind of interesting. It almost looks like an American car.
They didn't make many of these in a real GTR form. They made under 200. To have a real GTR and modify it, you're kind of crazy. You're destroying the value of it. So, this owner found this car like trees, like a plant was going through it. It was completely rusted, but he cut it up and he made it his own. And now, this has a modern RB engine.
Out of an R33 Skyline that's capable of 700 horsepower.
Now, let me ask, well, here in America, the hot rod rebel kind of style was sort of popular in movies and culture. In Japan, it seems a more refined culture. I know they had a restriction of, oh, nothing more than 276 horsepower. That was as far as you could go. So, was it tolerated? Was the sort of rebel thing admired by young people in Japan? Or was it like here or was it different? Was the culture such that this is not what we're about? A lot of loud noise and tires screeching and you know, that type of thing.
There is a divide, but honestly the tuning culture in Japan is something that you just cannot hold back. Just like here in California, we're so restrictive. But I mean, you see every single day when you're driving on the roads cars that are modified to the nines, everything chrome, everything polished, making 1000 horsepower. You'd be surprised in Japan, even now in 2025, when you go there, going to the rest stops, going to the car meets, the cars that you see blow me away. They're so... There may be certain things in terms of rules like ride height or the way the body needs to be or how big of a wing you can put on, but realistically, most of the engine is pretty unrestricted.
That's interesting because like in Germany, if you make a modification, if you put a tire on that's not a factory approved tire when it came out, boom, you're off the road. I mean, of course, you've got unlimited speed and all that kind of thing. But Japan is not that strict, is it?
No. Just like California, you can get away with certain things, right?
To a limit. I guess you can get away with it until you get caught, pretty much.
Yeah. Okay. Next, we're skipping a generation, right? But this one is something that is super special. This one is the DR30. So, now we're getting into like the R chassis. Kind of like how in the next room we have the R31, R32, R33, 34. This is the DR30. And while they didn't have a GTR version, they had something called the RS. And this is like the top-of-the-line version. It came with an FJ20ET, which is a 2 L 4-cylinder turbo engine, but the owner upgraded it with a more modern one out of like a 240SX. I don't know if you remember those.
But in Japan, those came with a 2 L turbo engine, dual overhead cam, right? So, we'll take a look at that.
So, this one is super rare. There's just not many of these in the US at all. So, the way this is set up right now, it makes 340 horsepower to the wheels.
Out of a 2 L, which is so crazy.
So, this is a black top SR20DET out of an S13. And it's just kind of like a more updated version of what would have come from the factory with this car.
Would it be fair to say the Skyline is the Japanese version of the American Mustang? A car that came along that you could raise a family in it. It would sort of dual purpose with the sportiness on the side.
That's really the difference between the Skyline and the Z, right? The Z is a coupe. You could only carry one other person, right? That's more of a sports car, a pure sports car, lighter weight. These were about touring, about GT. You could carry your family. I carry my family in my car all the time. It's also about pushing the limit of what's possible with technology.
And it's amazing how far Nissan was ahead of American manufacturers. You've got dual overhead cam, four valves per cylinder going back to the 80s almost, right? Early 90s. I mean, it took us a long time, you know, the big old American V8.
Well, I mean, I think the theme you'll see like starting especially with this generation is using forced induction to make more power, to be more efficient. Honestly, that's probably one of the big reasons why we love these cars so much because of the fact that they're so tunable and you can make them your own.
And you've got government restrictions. You know, for example, in England, they judge you by the bore. So you have a small bore engine with a long stroke. So you got a lot of torque. Then you go to France. Anything over 2.7 liter is considered excessive and is taxed literally out of oblivion. So you've got these high revving short stroke, you know. And the same thing with Japan. They weren't allowed to build... Were there any three liter engines in Japan at this time? Anybody doing anything that big? 3 liter, even 5 liter.
The really famous engine from Toyota actually that was built by Yamaha was the 2JZ for the Supra.
Right. And that came in the early 90s and that was for the American market primarily. Right.
Yes. Not as many sold in Japan, just kind of like the 240Z, right? The majority of the 240Zs and Zs in general sold in the US and outside of Japan. From what I remember, like the 240Z, I think 80% of them sold outside of Japan.
Well, this is a wonderful lineup. Now, we have the next generation in the other room.
All right. So this takes us from what, 71 to about what?
Yeah, this is a 1983 and then the next room will pick it up in 1987.
Now in Japan when a car gets to be more than 5 years old, is it taken off the road? These are the sort of rumor. I don't know if there's any truth. I hear two sides.
Yeah, this is a common misconception when it comes to older Japanese cars. I think around the time when a lot of people were bringing in just front clips of cars and engines, the thought was okay, yeah, these are taken off the road because they reached mileage or whatever. That's actually not true. I think the actual reason is because they don't have much space, right? In order for you to register a car, you have to prove that you have a parking space, right? You can't just have one garage and park all your cars on the street, right? You have to prove, okay, I have this many parking spaces, I can own this many cars.
Yeah. When I was in Japan, I remember seeing a number of people had this thing where lift the car up and it puts it on the roof. The car would hover over the house. You know, I thought that's the ultimate car guy right there.
It's interesting because you look at a car like my R34 GTR. It sat outside its entire life for 25 years before I brought it to the US. And now it's never gonna see the outside. Like I'll drive it, but I'm never going to park it outside overnight. You know, it's something that I cherish so much.
Your family will sleep outside first.
Exactly. Exactly. It's something that's near and dear to my heart.
But that's something that, you know, we've even had a chance to talk about before. A lot of these cars were just everyday pedestrian cars that don't mean anything in Japan, right? If you had a DR30, if you had a four-door Hakosuka, people wouldn't bat an eye. But here, they're special.
And here, these individuals that brought them in or imported them and take care of them, they jump through hoops to keep them on the road.
It's really hard to get parts for this, as you can understand, with all the different cars from all over the world here. And in Japan, the older the car is, the more you pay registration. Here, the longer you have it, the registration on a yearly basis goes down till eventually it goes away. But in Japan, it's the opposite because they don't want these old cars on the road. So, it's more expensive to have a 30-year-old car than a brand new car. Isn't that correct?
I'm not exactly sure about that, but I know so much of it just comes down to the cost of keeping them on the road, right? Just a normal person registering them, insuring them, keeping them clean. You know, it's so much about making sure they're safe to drive. Also, it's interesting even going to Japan and shopping for used parts. It's really difficult a lot of times to find things in good condition.
And part of it is because, you know, a lot of these cars have left Japan and a lot of parts have left Japan, too. All right, let's go into the other room and see the next generation of Nissan.
Well, here are four more of the seven generations of Nissan. So, where are we here?
So, now we're getting into, I would say, more my era in the '90s, but this one is a 1987. This is an R31. This one, there's a GTS-R version, which they only made about 800. That's closer to the GTR. It's not exactly a GTR, but that's like the high performance version. This one is a GTS. Now, the R31 is kind of unloved. It's not something that a lot of people modify for whatever reason. Maybe it's because it's boxy, maybe because it's the way it looks, but I love them. They're really, really coveted because of the racing heritage in Group A in Japan, right? And that's kind of why this owner put like inspiration livery as if Boss Coffee, like Suntory, raced at that time period. What would it have looked like, and this...
The livery from their... exactly.
And what is Wild Cards? I noticed a couple of cars had these, the Wild Cards.
So Wild Cards is a car club that I'm a part of.
So all of us are into Japanese JDM cars. Most of them are right-hand drive and most of them came from Japan. Some of them are USDM cars. But we all modify our cars and enjoy them.
Yeah. So that's kind of a fun quirky thing. Yeah.
You know how in the US a lot of car shows we have Carl's Jr. in the US and they put the, you know, like the number, the order number, and then it's like if you have a 1969 car you have order number 69, you put it on your dash.
Like there's certain things that Japanese tuners love to do.
And that's a subway handle, I see, from the Japanese subway. But this...
So this is an inline 6, 2 L RB20DET engine. So it's turbo. Makes about 180 horsepower. But I want to show you something really fun. If you can go to the front of the car.
If you want to go really fast in this car, it has a really neat trick. Now, if you look at the front end...
Mhm.
Oh, the spoiler retracts.
So, you can make it more or less aerodynamic.
Depending on what you need. Isn't that funny? Back in 1987.
Yeah. Well, that's interesting, isn't it?
That's an aftermarket piece.
Yeah, that came from Nissan that way.
Oh, but I mean you wouldn't think you are going fast enough that that makes any sort of difference really.
I don't know. Maybe it was gimmicky, but in the TV commercials back then, they had a bunch of these on kind of like an oval, right? And the lip was retracting and extending. And that was a selling point for this car.
Oh, interesting. Now, were all Nissan Skylines manual transmissions? Did they make automatics for these?
They did make automatic versions of just the regular...
Yeah, the family model. This is the GTS and they had automatic versions, but this one is a 5-speed manual. I'll show you the engine here.
So, this one's been around the block a few times.
A lot more stock. Like I said, RB, this is pretty much like the first generation of the RB engine, and that evolved into the RB26, which is the legendary engine that, you know, people love to tune and make over a thousand horsepower with.
Wow. This... And what is that? Is this a clear plastic...
That's a plate plastic cover. So, you can see the belt.
Yeah, this is just the belt.
No, just timing belt cover.
Yeah. So, this one is rear wheel drive. The GTRs after this were all all-wheel drive.
But this one did have a really interesting trick. It's the first Skyline with rear steering.
Yeah. So, this is hydraulically activated rear steer. Just so it's almost like it gets you around the corner better.
Well, were there any front-wheel drive Skylines?
Right. Okay. So, you had rear wheel or all wheel, but no front wheel. Okay.
Well, but not of this generation.
After this generation with the R32, which is what we have here. This is the one that they made the most of in terms of GTRs. And this one is the first one kind of, I would say, of my era. This they made from 1989 to 1994. This one is a very heavily modified example. The owner had the vision, learned about this car, grew up in the US wanting this car eventually. And once this turned 25 years old, it was finally able to come to the US.
It almost looks like an American version or something built for the American market. The wheels are bigger. It has almost Mustang-like proportions, American car, midsize car proportions. But it was never imported here. Correct.
No, this was never imported here. And that's kind of... not even this body style with a different engine. Not this body style. At this time, there was the 300ZX twin turbo in the US. And there was a couple different rumors and a couple different stories in terms of why Nissan never brought this to the US. One big one has to do with the RB26DET engine. Because the turbos are on that side and they're twin turbos, it's physically almost physically impossible to have the steering on that side.
Oh, gotcha. Okay. You can't get the steering box. Yeah. Yeah.
That's not to say people don't convert them, right? So, you'll see some of these in the Middle East, in Dubai, in the Philippines where they spend the time to convert them, but I think it's pretty dangerous.
It is dangerous because your steering box gets so hot. Exactly. You boil the grease in the thing and then it locks up on you. Yeah.
So, this one here, I'll open this one up. This one's interesting in that the owner had a vision for the build even before he bought the car, right? So, he already got the wheels, he already got parts for it, and then once he got the car, he built it in period, like it's of era, okay? You know, it's not using new wheels. It's not using a lot of new dress-up parts. The point is that he wanted to build it as if this was a car that he had when it was a new car.
Now, I know all of them have this brace. Are these... they all appear to be aftermarket. Was there no factory brace here?
Yeah, there was no factory brace here ever.
That's interesting because with this much power, you'd think you would need this.
So, some of the special models like the Nismo version, right? And I think the Z-Tune and the 400R version of the R33 did have a brace and you wouldn't believe how much it actually helps. And I saw it firsthand.
When I bought one for my car, it didn't fit. I bought it from Nismo Omori in Japan, took it as my carry-on when I flew home from Japan. And you know, I got home to my car. I'm like, "All right, time to put on my brace. It's titanium." And I put it on, it didn't fit right. I was like, "What the heck?" Turns out I have to jack up the car to unload...
Gotcha. See, it's a millimeter.
It's so close. And then as soon as I jacked it up, it dropped on. Perfect.
So, that's how I know that brace actually works.
Yeah. So, this makes about 487 horsepower to the wheels, and it's all-wheel drive, 5-speed transmission. This thing is an absolute riot. This still has twin turbos.
Did they sell this in Europe? Because I mentioned that because 2.7 is the max in France. You can't go higher than that without paying the tax. So, did they export this to Europe or is it just America didn't get it?
They did export it to Australia. I'm not exactly sure if they exported this to Europe. I know they exported my car, the R34, to England. Not sure about mainland Europe.
I have seen some like brand new Australia import cars where they change a couple things to make it legal for Australia.
Now, this clear plastic cover for the timing belts there, I guess that must be a popular option in Japan, is it? I saw it on that one just then.
Yeah. That's just kind of like a dress-up part.
So, in terms of like popular for tuning, I would say this generation, the R32 is the most popular, right? Part of it is because it's the most affordable. It's the first version of this. It's lightweight compared to the other three versions. Like this is kind of like the modern era, right? 32, 33, 34. This weighed 3,100 some odd pounds, all-wheel drive. It had this rear steering as well, but it was hydraulic. Most of the people who have this car delete the rear steer because it doesn't actually help.
It actually kind of feels a little weird.
It's better for parking, right?
Well, no, not even that. It's supposed to get you around the corner. And it doesn't slide out, but it almost gives you like an uneasy feeling when the rear is moving, but you're like, "Oh, am I sliding or what's going on?"
So, the rear steer is deleted on this. And I have one of these, too. It's also deleted on my car because it just makes it easier to drive.
Is that a software delete or do you have to physically get underneath it and...
No, you actually have to take out that whole hydraulic unit.
Oh, wow. And then you have to replace it with arms, right? Like control arms.
Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's go to the next one.
So, this is the R33. And this is kind of like the middle child. It's somewhat unloved when it first came out because it was such a drastic jump in terms of weight. It's 300 lb more than this one, but it also increased with a lot of technology. So, it does make a little more power. In terms...
Of gentleman's agreement, you mentioned everyone is supposed to make about 267 horsepower.
But they actually made more.
Yeah. So, this one made about 320 horsepower. This one made about 330ish depending on the fuel and the elevation, all that. This one has a lot more arrow and it's just a more modern car.
