History of The Brand
The Skyline name originated from Prince automobile company, which developed and sold the Skyline line of sedans before merging with Nissan-Datsun. The GT-R abbreviation stands for Gran Turismo Racer while the GT-B stands for Gran Turismo Berlinetta. The Japanese chose to use Italian when naming the car – as most cars made in Japan at that time used Western abbreviations – to further enhance sales. The earliest predecessor of the GT-R, the S54 2000 GT-B, came second in its first race in 1964 to the purpose-built Porsche 904 GTS. The next development of the GT-R, the four-door PGC10 2000 GT-R, scored 33 victories in the one and a half years it raced, and by the time it attempted its 50th consecutive win, its run was ended by a Mazda Savanna RX-3. The car took 1000 victories by the time it was discontinued in 1972. The last of the original GT-Rs, the KPGC110 2000GT-R, used an unchanged S20 119 kW (160 hp) inline-6 engine from the earlier 2000 GT-R and only sold 197 units due to the worldwide energy crisis. This model was the only GT-R to never participate in a major race despite the sole purpose-built racecar which now resides in Nissan's storage unit for historical cars in Zama.
The Skyline continued into the 1990s when it became popular largely because it remained rear wheel drive, while most other manufacturers were focusing on front wheel drive cars.
Throughout its lifetime, various special editions containing additional performance-enhancing modifications, were released by Nissan and its performance division Nismo (Nissan Motorsport).
Read more about this topic: Nissan Skyline GT-R
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history and/or brand:
“Certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All objects, all phases of culture are alive. They have voices. They speak of their history and interrelatedness. And they are all talking at once!”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“We should always remember that the work of art is invariably the creation of a new world, so that the first thing we should do is to study that new world as closely as possible, approaching it as something brand new, having no obvious connection with the worlds we already know. When this new world has been closely studied, then and only then let us examine its links with other worlds, other branches of knowledge.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)