For some reason, the R32 Nissan Skyline GT-R has always fit into the JDM car category. Got it. it is perhaps the biggest car that has ever been sold in the United States. But it deserves to be reconsidered even more than that, because it is in the same category as the BMW M3, the Subaru WRX, Mitsubishi Evo, as a legend of Group A.
Every year, the most chosen members of Jalopnik – well, just me this year – brought you the best of Group C and GT1 races from the 1980s and 1990s. We even did a Group B rally theme once. But for some reason, we never addressed the most successful undisputed racing formula of all. It’s the weird title Group A-smas, worthy of celebration.
Even I never really thought of the R32 GT-R as a Group A success story. It never ran in the same series as other homologation specials more associated with the formula. The legendary Group A rally cars have become legends for their rivalries. O Lancia Delta Integrale was against the Toyota Celica GT-Four, the Subaru Impreza WRX against the evolution of the Mitsubishi Lancer. The R32 GT-R does not take into account.
The story is the same for the legendary Group A touring cars. The BMW M3 was made only as a means of getting revenge on the Mercedes 190E Cosworth, and who knows if we would even have the V8 Audis if the company didn’t want to win a championship of its own. . And in all of the featured DTM videos on YouTube, and in all press releases from BMW and Benz, there is no R32 to be found.
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Nissan drove the R32 GT-R mainly in its territory, competing in the Japanese Touring Car Championship under A group regulations. As soon as the R32 loaded, it took over. In 1990, he won the championship. In 1991, won the championship. In 1992 and 1993, well, yes, the same story. I was competing against cars we know from Europe, M3s and Sierra RS500s, but while any American can go out and buy an M3 and live part of its history, the R32s denied usear rule. It was kept away at Gran Turismo on video option DVDs as part of a JDM story and not of Group A.
(I will also say that the R32 GT-R had some history of Group N too. Won under the homologation rules inferior sometimes, including in the NüRburgring.)
Nowhere does the G of the R32Roup A Clout clearer than perhaps the defining moment in the history of the GT-R. It’s the car leaving Japan and going down to Australia and defeated the rest of Group A there, to the point of being booed in 1992:
That’s it! That’s the whole story! We must include the R32 GT-R as part of the history of the homologation specials, just as we have included it in our thoughts about the wonders of JDM and the majesties of Bubble Era. It’s not just a drift car, drag car or tuner car waiting. He turned a relatively simple Skyline into a performance machine; Iit’s a touring car, and one of the biggest that ever did that.