The Nissan Skyline GT-R Nismo 400R is a brilliant, rare, beast of a vehicle. But would you pay more than £600,000 for one?
If you’ve tried to buy a new project car recently, you’ll know that prices for used motors are currently sky high. However, if you thought the figures attached to regular JDM hero cars were eye-watering enough, then this 400R will make your wallet wince.
Listed for sale on a Japanese auction site, this white example arrived with a starting price of 45 million yen (£269,000), but it wasn’t long before the bidding entered an entirely different stratosphere.
As things stand, the exact price that the car sold for is unclear. The electronic bidding system tapped out once the figure had reached 99,995,000 yen (£597,000), but at that point, there were still four different people attempting to claim the car as their own. It’s understood that the final price is likely to have risen way beyond the £600,000-mark, but whether or not seven figures were reached is as yet unknown. We’ll update this article if any further announcement emerges, but in the meantime, head over to our Nissan Skyline ultimate guide for all your Skyline information.
All in all, this is likely to be a record price for a Nissan Skyline sold at a Japanese auction, so what makes it so special?
Well, first you’ve got to take into account its condition. This thing had just 15,000km on the clock, and its 4.5-grade auction description suggests that it’s in near-perfect condition. Now, the Skyline afficionados amongst you might be thinking, ‘well, hold on – an R34 V-Spec II Nur with showroom mileage *only* sold for about £450,000 last year. The world’s gone mad!’. And yes, the car market has gone mad, but once you acknowledge the mystique around the 400R in particular, that gulf in price between the two cars becomes a little more understandable.
Only 44 of these were ever made, but besides the exclusivity, they also boast some enviable sporting potential. Under the hood you’ll find a special bored and stroked version of the RB26DETT block, capable of outputting 400 horsepower – hence the name. In practice, that should equate to a 0-60mph time of just 4.0 seconds, and a top speed of more than 300kmh (186mph).
The 400R is about more than just its limited-run parts though. For many, it’s a cultural icon – one of the most prestigious vehicles from the golden age of Japanese sports cars. If you were part of the ‘Playstation generation’, then this is a car which would’ve left its mark on you one way or another. Whether it be through your Gran Turismo garage collection, your bedroom posters, or maybe even those wonderful old things called car magazines – the 400R was a car that many of us idolised.
So, there you have it: the perfect storm of rarity, quality, and nostalgia. But still, is the Nismo 400R really worth more than 600 grand? We’ll let you decide…
