When Gran Turismo burst upon the scene back in 1997, one thing immediately became obvious: We all needed a Nissan GT-R. While the driving sim featured many of the day’s top performers, that all-wheel-drive, twin-turbo Nissan stood out like a nuclear warhead at a knife fight.
There was one teeny, tiny, little problem: Even if you had the scratch, the car could not be legally driven on American roads because Nissan didn’t import that model here.
So, you figure, you’d just import one on your own, right? Therein lay the rub: The U.S. government said no. Defy them and bring one in anyway, and you’d face the consequences–like potential confiscation.
That modern GT-R, chassis code R32, debuted during the summer of 1989. The first generation ran through 1994, and not only did it rule Gran Turismo, but it dominated both Japanese and Australian touring car racing.
Here’s some good news: It recently got a little easier to have your very own GT-R. Those first examples have now celebrated their 25th birthday, meaning they can finally be legally imported into the U.S. without any safety or emissions modifications. Any car at least 25 years old automatically gets a pass from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the EPA–although Californians have to meet state emissions specs as well.
Before you just put one on a boat and send it here, however, a caution from someone in the business: John Stagnitta, owner of JDM importing house Black Ops Performance, has been bringing in Japanese vehicles for more than a dozen years and warns, “The oil pumps were not properly seated to the crankshaft. As soon as the pump fails, you have zero oil pressure and you’re done.”
The preemptive fix, he explains, involves pulling the crankshaft and installing what is called a crank collar–or replacing the crank or even the entire engine with one from a later R33-chassis GT-R, since Nissan remedied the problem for the model changeover. Stagnitta also recommends buying a car that has cleared a radiation inspection.
How do you buy a car that’s not a ticking time bomb? Buy from a dealer with the proper resources. “You can’t inspect a Skyline in Japan if you’re Joe Customer,” he says. “You have to deal with someone you can trust. My rule is Google the name of the business and ‘scam.’”
Stagnitta says to budget at least $30,000 for a good car that’s been imported by a known, trusted outfit. If the engine fails due to oil starvation, he cautions, budget at least $5000 for a rebuild, assuming the plug was pulled soon enough.
“The positives are, it’s a race car,” he notes. “An NSX is an exotic. But a Skyline will annihilate it.”
