‘71 Skyline Hakosuka

Today is Oct. 29, 2024 and I decided to start a blog on the ownership of a car I aspired to own so I’ll be backlogging of what happened the past two years.

I’ve always admired the shape and styling of the mid 60’s Ford Mustangs. American classic cars were pretty much all I’ve seen in person growing up in Southern California other than the Datsun 240 & 280 Zs. Around May 2020 I attended a local car event at The Motoring Club in Los Angeles and saw the first generation Nissan Skyline and I was mesmerized. It had wide fender flares, a front and rear spoiler and screamed race car but at same time it was classic and timeless.

Fast forward to August of 2022 I started to consider what it would be like to own a first generation Skyline aka Hakosuka (Japanese translation Hako = box and Suka short for sukarain = skyline) I started to ask around and look for online posts for a Hako coupe. The range for coupes were from 1971 – 1972 in the 2000 GT, 2000 GT-X, and GT-R models. I knew that getting a GT-R was out of my ballpark and would feel so bad about modifying it because of their extremely high resale value for a stock one. So I was in search of ones that had gone through some sort of restoration and modification simply because most of the cars from that era would have needed some TLC and would be considered slow in today’s roads. I was open for one that had more power and suited for spirited driving; after all it was a race car. (Here’s a link to Motortrend’s article History of Hakosuka Racecars) After posting a wanted ad on a Hakosuka enthusiast facebook page I was surprised with one reply from a man name Kevin.

Kevin was the owner of a restomod Skyline 2000GT and had considered selling the car for a few years but to my knowledge no deals had gone through. He tinkered with the idea of seeing it outside of Australia and even possibly in Los Angeles where it would find a nice home with all the car enthusiasts. Here are some photos he sent that made me want to know more about it.

We started exchanging text messages via Facebook and learning about the history of the car. Kevin imported it from Japan around 2007-2008. Here’s a photo of the car sitting outside a Tokyo classic car dealership in Japan before it was imported to Australia.

When the car landed in Kevin’s possession there were issues that needed to be sorted out to get it driving on the road. I believe it was a process that took him close to two years to get it running safely & healthy; healthy enough to participate in autocross, drag races, and long distance driving.

Let’s start with the engine, the heart and the muscles of the car. The engine is swapped to a Nissan L28 bored 3mm to a 2.95 liter with 11:1 compression ratio with HKS pistons. JDM N42 cylinder head with enlarged ports, welded & reshaped chambers, and large valves. It has a 302 degree camshaft, triple Italian Weber 40 DCOE, Trust headers, twin 2” custom exhaust which makes it sound like a monster, well maybe more like Godzilla. It’s said to produce around 250 horsepower at 6600 RPM with a redline of 7000 RPM.

The transmission was swapped from a 4 speed to a 5 speed manual from a 280 ZX with a Subaru STI R180 limited slip differential. It sat on vintage Watanabe 14×7.5 (-4 offset) in the front and even wider vintage Watanabes 14×10 (-20 offset) in the rear giving it a muscle car stance. It has a 2 inch drop with Koni Sport adjustable dampers and coilover springs with Datsport camber plates in the front and GAB suspension 8-way adjustable dampers with Datsport coilovers for the rear. There are a ton more upgrades on the car but I’ll end the list with a 1 of 1000 made Nismo Compe limited edition re-issued steering wheel.

Last but not least it was my color of choice, silver with black interior. Oh boy, was I sold! This had to be the one. The only problem was that it was located across the world in Sydney, Australia!