{"id":48763,"date":"2017-09-19T16:20:15","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T15:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.influx.co.uk\/?p=48763"},"modified":"2022-06-14T12:09:31","modified_gmt":"2022-06-14T11:09:31","slug":"skyline-beast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/features\/skyline-beast\/","title":{"rendered":"Skyline: The Beast from the East"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are times when I genuinely have to pinch myself.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I like cars and bikes. I\u2019ve always liked cars and bikes, and so to be in a position where my job is to go off with one of my best mates of 25 years, and make lovely little films about cars and bikes for the nice people at Influx, is pretty good really.<\/p>\n

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Our latest automotive adventure saw us focus our attentions towards the Far East. Not King’s Lynn, which is the home of this publication, but even further east beyond the Norfolk shores to a land of rising suns and mythical legends, more commonly known as Japan. When you think of Japan and their cars, you tend to associate them with practicality and reliability, which is why you\u2019ll often see grey hair piloting the Jazz or Micra in front you doing 27 miles per hour. They\u2019re the sensible option, and as such have been the geriatrics cars of choice for many years. However, not everything that comes out of Japan is sensible. There lurks beneath their mild mannered exterior, a darker side. A side somewhere between madness and carmageddon, which is where you\u2019ll find the Nissan Skyline.<\/p>\n

\"Skyline<\/a><\/figure>\n

First launched in 1957, the Nissan Skyline is 60 years old! I know, I too was surprised when I found out it was the same age as Eric Bristow. It\u2019s a car with real legacy that started to show early signs of madness in the late 60s with the introduction of the first Skylines to carry the GT-R badge. The Skyline GT-R was first manufactured from 1969 until 1972 when the oil crisis started to really bite and demand for performance cars, like the oil supply, began to dry up. Production ceased and a 16 year hiatus began for the GT-R badge, before the touch paper was relit in 1989 with the launch of the R32 model. I must point out that there\u2019s a load more history and detail<\/a> that I\u2019ve totally skimmed over and make no apology for, but for me it\u2019s all about 1989 onwards when the land of the riotous fun gave us the R32 and things went to next level silly.<\/p>\n

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Nicknamed \u2018Godzilla\u2019 and being 1000 HP tuneable, it\u2019s all to do with the RB26 engine. The same block that you\u2019ll find in the R32, R33 and R34 models which is what we associate with the Nissan Skyline GT-R badge and those iconic rear lights. When we were wondering what to include in our four and a half minute Skyline film, we thought lots of sideways, a bit of calm to provide a breather, and then a load more sideways and finish. If you\u2019re looking for a historical documentary that meticulously charts the car\u2019s 60 year legacy then you\u2019ve come to the wrong place. However, if you like to watch Skylines doing what they do best and creating a tonne of smoke in the process, then this could be right up your street!<\/p>\n

\"Nissan<\/a><\/figure>\n

We were very kindly invited up to Round 4 of Drift Cup at the Teesside Autodrome by Mark Buckle who runs the event there. Mark or \u2018Sweeps\u2019 as he\u2019s better known, couldn\u2019t have done more for us, granting us \u2018access all areas\u2019 to the track, the garages, the drivers, the coffee machine, everything. We spent the weekend in Middlesbrough filming lots of Skylines, doing lots of sideways, and creating lots of smoke, and even managed to get ourselves in for a couple of passenger laps at the end, courtesy of \u2018Sweeps\u2019 of course.<\/p>\n

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It was a great couple of days, and while we were there, Danny Grundy, one of the drivers that we met and filmed with, told us that he worked for Julian Smith at Garage-D in Watford who is quite simply \u2018Mr Skyline\u2019 in the UK. What Julian doesn\u2019t know about the Nissan Skyline GT-R isn\u2019t worth knowing, and if there\u2019s one place that you\u2019d take your GT-R to have it tuned properly it\u2019s Garage-D, so we gratefully accepted Danny\u2019s offer of popping down for a visit and went to find out first hand what it is that makes the cars so special.<\/p>\n\n\t\t