Probably we should have seen this coming. The past decade and a bit has seen a perfect storm swirl around the iconic Japanese performance cars of the late 20th and early 21st century - the Nissan Skyline GT-R in particular. Millennial kids raised on a potent diet of Gran Turismo, Need for Speed and Fast & Furious reached a point in adulthood where they could afford one of their hero cars, for starters; the untimely death of Paul Walker must have drawn more attention to the cars of the Skyline’s ilk as well. And each year new vehicles became eligible for US export, adding a huge amount more potential buyers to a limited pool of available cars.
There’s also been a sense that the glory days of the Japanese fast car are some way in the past. While there have been one or two recent highlights - the GR86, the turbo Civic Type Rs and ND MX-5 spring to mind - the impact just hasn’t been the same. Those cars of the '90s and '00s just hadn’t been seen before by anyone, properly establishing the Japanese makers across the world as among the very best. Perhaps it would be impossible to have the same influence again, though just look at Nissan in recent years for evidence of the malaise: the Z is an old car underneath, and the GT-R continued for longer than it should have.
Whatever, the cars that were cheap - an R32 GT-R NISMO was £15k in 2014 - are most certainly no longer. And this one is very special indeed; because not only is it a low mileage, unmodified, one-owner R34 Skyline GT-R, it’s one of the original UK-supplied examples rather than an import. There were just 80 prepared for Nissan GB by Middlehurst Motorsport, following the 100 R33s that received the same treatment in the 1990s. It’s an exceptionally rare find.
The UK cars are identified most obviously by the Connolly leather, presumably an attempt to lift the interior ambience for what was going to be a £50k car - which was M5 money in 1999. Elsewhere Middlehurst kitted the cars out with additional oil coolers (engine, gearbox, transfer box) to protect the powertrain at high speed - unlike Japanese spec GT-Rs, the UK ones would run to 155mph rather than 112mph. We’ve written about a UK-spec R34s beforehand, with more miles and mods than this 2001 car, though for some idea of where the market has gone it’s worth looking at again. In 2016 a 400hp R34 with suspension and brake mods was £36k with 80,000 miles; we’d already seen a minter in 2013 at £50k. Now, admittedly the best R34 we’ve ever seen is a quarter-of-a-milliom pound prospect.
So what does £249,999 get you? A totally unmolested R34, for one thing, which is essentially unheard of in 2025. Not an exhaust, not a wheel change, not an air filter - nothing. It’s also covered just 7,270 miles since 2001 (the year the first Fast & Furious was in cinemas, appropriately enough), with just one owner. If we aren’t all sick of the term, it’s probably unprecedented as far as Skyline GT-Rs go. There’s just nothing else like this one.
Probably this isn’t the R34 best suited to experiencing why the car dumbfounded so many. Arguably at this value, or even anywhere close, it might feel too precious to use at all. Which would be a bit of a shame, if understandable. Instead, it’s surely going to take its place in a collection, perhaps of its fellow Japanese icons, the 2000GTs, NSXs, LFAs and Cosmos of this world. There’s not a car cave in the world that won’t be improved for the GT-R’s presence.
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