- Only 44 NISMO 400Rs are known to exist, making this special Skyline extra rare.
- It has a 400 hp inline six, built by a specialist with experience in Group A racing Skylines.
- A hero car from the earliest PlayStation days, it’s predicted to hit the seven-figure mark.
While Nissan’s mighty GT-R is currently on hiatus, the nameplate’s many years of heritage (almost as long as Porsche’s 911) provide plenty of opportunity for debate over which one is best. When it comes to modern Skyline GT-Rs, starting with the R32 in 1989, the R33-chassis car often becomes the overlooked middle child. It falls into the same vein as the third-generation Mazda MX-5 or the 996-era 911, somewhat overshadowed by both its ancestors and its descendants.
Well, not this one.
Say hello to one of the rarest Skyline GT-Rs ever produced, the NISMO 400R. One of only 44 made, this specific example goes to auction on March 7, during this year’s Amelia Island event, and projections are that bids could top the million-dollar mark.
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There are undoubtedly a few former Altima owners in the crowd wondering, āA million dollars? For a Nissan?“ Let’s take a look at what makes the 400R so special.
First you start with how great the R33 GT-R is to drive in its stock form. The R32, which is older, is a bit rawer and has the pedigree of a touring car. The R33 is heavier, but still has a fantastic twin-turbo straight-six, all-wheel grip and a chassis that feels more polished. The R34 that this car follows is the one that hardcore Skyline fans love, but it’s really just an optimized R33. Again, as is the case with the third generation NC MX-5, this may not be the best choice, but it’s still great.
Furthermore, the 400R has a racing pedigree. In 1995, the Nissan Motorsport team (NISMO) entered two Skylines in that year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race. The race itself was something of a mechanical bloodbath, with an attrition rate of almost 60 percent. One of the cars, which had a manual gearbox instead of a sequential gearbox, managed to finish in the top 10.
The 400R was intended to bring that racing spirit to the road. NISMO contracted specialist REINIK to build the car’s inline-six, as the company had previous experience developing powerplants for the R32’s dominant Group A performance. REINIK took the already powerful 2.6-liter inline-six and bored it out to 2.8 liters with forged, balanced and blueprinted internals. It fitted further upgraded turbochargers and set the redline at 9000 rpm.
Power was quoted at 400 hp, which blew a Skyline-shaped hole through the unofficial Japanese ‘gentleman’s agreement’, under which manufacturers had set a power limit of 276 hp. Of course, GT-Rs have been making more power than this for years, but at least Nissan pretended to keep its end of the bargain. Not anymore.
In addition to the engine, the 400R received an improved and lowered suspension with Bilstein dampers, a titanium exhaust and reworked aerodynamics. The top speed was estimated at 300 km/h. When the first Major tourism game came out for the Sony PlayStation in the mid-1990s, the 400R was essentially a cheat code to win.
The example for sale at Amelia is suitably finished in white, the Japanese racing color, and has just over 10,000 kilometers on the odometer. It was originally imported into Canada, as that country had only had an import law for fifteen years, and was then brought to the US in 2024. There are hardly any of these cars to be found outside of museums and private collections, and of course very few in the US.
In the JDM collector world, this is as much a blue-chip collectible as something like a Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing would be in conventional classic car circles. As such, it’s going to rake in a lot of money. But more than just an investment, it’s also incredibly exciting to drive, and highly appealing to anyone experiencing it for the first time in video game form. In any discussion about whether the GT-R is the best of the breed, this car gets a say.
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Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, BC, Canada. He grew up on British cars, came of age in the golden age of Japanese sports compact performance, and started writing about cars and people in 2008. His special interest is in the intersection between man and machine, whether it concerns the racing career of Walter Cronkite or the half-century-long obsession of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki with the Citroƫn 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to constantly buy Hot Wheels.
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