Have you seen one on our roads lately?
The prices for some retro Japanese speed machines have gone to almost insane levels which are making retro German cars looking rather less attractive in the collector’s market.
The slow rise in demand for these classic speed machines were somewhat quiet until the last 3-4 years and today they are more in demand than an air cooled Porsche 911. Yup, the asking prices of the classic 911 has somewhat slowed down the past year and cars like the Datsun 240Z and the Toyota 2000 GT have taken podium positions.
Changing Taste
Surprisingly this ‘change in consumer taste’ started in North America and then filtered slowly to United Kingdom and now it is going global as middlemen visit far locations to find ‘barnyard’ retro Japanese cars and restoring them for healthy profits. Of course the Japanese themselves are having a good time selling their units and many are starting to turn up in Australia and Hong Kong.
One retro Japanese car that has hit ‘silly’ asking price levels is the 1969 Skyline. This unassuming 4-seater commuter looking machine is in high demand today with collectors as it was mostly sold in Japan only.
History Lesson
It all started in 1964 where Datsun engineers looked at combining a lengthened Skyline body with the larger Datsun Gloria’s 6-cylinder engine, the car proved itself at the Japanese Grand Prix sweeping 2nd through 6th behind a Porsche 904. The car continued on to be a successful race car, nearing 50 consecutive wins in the 18 months it was actively campaigned and so began a performance dynasty and a legendary nameplate which continues to this day.
Then, Datsun combined its best technologies and produced “Skyline 2000GT-R”. Launched in February 1969, this was the first Skyline to wear the GT-R badge after merging with a car company called Prince Motors, Ltd. “GT-R” was a high performance car produced for touring car races.
The know-how for prototype race car “R380” was filled in an ordinary looking sedan body*. Mounted was the 4-valve DOHC engine re-engineered from the one for R380 to suit production cars.
It made a debut and won at “JAF GP” in May 1969, 3 months after the rollout. Since then, it kept winning until it attained 52 victories before the Nissan works team withdrew in October 1972. It was famous for its top speed of 200km/h and its ability to cover 400m from a standing start in just 16.1 seconds.
On a recent trip to Japan we managed to capture these images of this legendary sports car in showrooms condition neatly parked next to its lesser siblings.
We have yet to see a unit running in Malaysia but have been told that a handful of cars were imported in a few years ago and sold to collectors. These cars have yet to be seen and maybe some of you reading this might have caught sight of them on the road.
Selling Price
It is truly surprising for us to see what buyers are willing to pay for this car. In Japan there are units for sale from USD70,000 to as high as USD88,000 (RM335,000 to RM385,000 before local taxes and delivery charges). See picture below.
