White 1998 Nissan Fairlady Z (Z32) 2by2 Twin Turbo at night on a wet street (AI illustration based on a photograph)

AI illustration based on a photo by TTTNIS, CC0 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Details may differ from the real car.

Brands

Nissan sports cars

Nissan's sports cars cover a lot of ground: the Fairlady Z for the open road, the Skyline GT-R for the circuit and the Silvia for going sideways. This page follows the lineage, the engines, the racing and Nismo.

The sports cars, in order

The Fairlady Z arrived at the end of 1969 and found a strong following overseas; Nissan says the Z series as a whole passed one million cars (source 1). The Skyline GT-R arrived the same year (source 2). After the KPGC110 of 1973 there was no GT-R until the R32 of 1989 (source 3). From the S13 of 1988 on, the rear-wheel-drive Silvia became a staple of drifting: in the D1 Grand Prix seasons of 2003 to 2005, the S15 was the most common car in the field (sources 9, 10).

Fairlady ZModel page coming

What Nissan is known for

The RB straight-sixes, above all the RB26DETT with its iron block and forged internals (source 5); the SR20DET turbo four of the Silvia (source 6); the ATTESA E-TS all-wheel-drive system (source 7); and HICAS four-wheel steering, which the 1989 Fairlady Z carried as Super HICAS (source 8).

In motorsport

The R32 GT-R in Group A touring cars: it won the Japanese Touring Car Championship four years in a row, and the Australian championship in 1991 and 1992 (source 3). The first GT-R had already won 52 races in three years (source 11). Nismo races in Super GT today (source 4).

The tuning house

Nismo, formed in September 1984 when Nissan merged its two motorsport departments. It races, makes performance parts and lends its name to road cars. Since April 2022 it has been part of Nissan Motorsport & Customizing rather than a separate company (source 4).