Nissan's Skyline's been around and, for the most part, unavailable to the average American fanboy since '57. It'd take another three and a half decades or so for you to care, though, and the same amount of time before a model was introduced that'd you'd pretend you'd someday own.

We're talking about Nissan's R32 and R33 Skylines, both of which their GT-R trims set the stage for two decades worth of boy-racer video games, a Hollywood blockbuster franchise that skirted the line of what was actually realistic and what was just plain ridiculous, and the basis for American import car lovers' automotive bucket lists that almost always go unfulfilled.

Like any Japanese supercar worth its factory-supplied turbo, Nissan's designers targeted the weaknesses of some sort of already-established and expensive piece of European machinery, which in the case of the GT-R was Porsche's 959. And it worked. The R32, specifically, dominated JTCC races and the Group N series in its homeland where the GT-R's presence is most widely known.

Out of all of Japan's late-twentieth-century supercar lineup, the GT-R no doubt remains the most elusive, mostly because American car buyer's have never been privy to it without paying all sorts of premiums and dealing with the sort of bureaucracies that are often associated with transporting a car from one country to another. Let's also not forget about the whole ??? fiasco...

Technical Highlights

Both the R32 and R33 GT-Rs were powered by a similar RB26DETT engine and an all-wheel-drive layout. The 2.6L, twin-cam, inline-six lays down a maximum of 280 hp and 289 lb-ft of torque without even trying and remains the most powerful RB engine among Nissan's lineup - also has the most potential. It shares an architecture similar to the smaller 2.5L engine but features individual throttle bodies and parallel-mounted, twin turbochargers. And like the Supra's 2JZ engine, it too features a cast-iron and nearly indestructible engine block of which boost practically knows no bounds.

It's the all-wheel-drive layout that makes the GT-R the special car that it is, though. Here, the longitudinally mounted engine up front is mated to a conventional, rear-wheel-drive sort of transmission, essentially allowing it to behave more like something powered by its hind end until you let things get out of control. Nissan accomplishes all of this with ATTESA (Advanced Total Traction Engineering System for All-Terrain). The system's based off of a conventional rear-wheel-drive gearbox that drives the rear differential via a standard tailshaft. At the end of the transmission sits the all-wheel-drive transfer case of which a short driveshaft transverses back to the front wheels through another differential. Inside the transfer case, a multi-plate clutch pack distributes torque. Information like G-force, boost pressure, throttle position, and individual wheel speed is fed into the computer. If traction's lost, the clutches intervene, engaging and sending torque to the appropriate wheels.