2002 marked the end of a beautiful Skylined era. It was the final production year of the famed GT-R (not to be confused with the R35 you know of today), and with it, the most successful engine Nissan had ever designed. To commemorate 13 years of production, which began back in 1989 with the BNR32, a final limited-edition of the BNR34 was created: the Nür, sold in both V-spec II and M-spec versions. Only 1000 of these cars were made, specifically to pay homage to the race tracks that had helped shape them into the most capable Japanese sports cars of the nineties. The Skyline GT-R and RB26 fueled the Japanese tuning industry through those golden years, and will continue to remain a reference point for the best the JDM world has ever produced. It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 10 years since the R34 went out of production, but equally incredible this second generation of GT-Rs (1989~2002) continues to captivate the minds of enthusiasts. Even Nissan, through NISMO, recognizes the importance of these cars, having launched a program at the beginning of this year to begin developing new and exciting modern tuning parts for the RB26 and the GT-R.
There are no purists in the GT-R world. Nissan created it as a ready-to-modify package that had a high potential for performance, that is, so long as you have the money to play with. We recently discovered at the Osaka-based tuning faction, Auto Select, there are indeed people who are ready to play, and they like to get dirty with a car like the R34 V-specII Nür. Combining the kind of “in-your-face” tuning that the Kansai area of Japan is so well known for, the owner of this car inspired himself from Auto Select’s own demo car, the Yellow Shark. As the Sawa brothers of Auto Select tell us, “This car has become an example that we like to use to show potential customers what we can build for legal street use.” We’re almost floored just looking at which cars in Japan are considered street legal; this one’s built with a collection of high-end, performance-driven parts that would be anything but legal in our neck of the woods.
This particular R34 is dressed up in high-end NISMO fashion, like the Z-tune front fenders, side and rear skirts. The front bumper is a carbon-fiber replica of the NISMO Version 1 bumper, mated to an Auto Select front carbon lip spoiler, which is very Mr. Plow-looking. More carbon comes in the way of an extremely lightweight Sun Line Racing carbon hood, which is styled to look much like the Z-tune piece. Nismo GT LED taillights are also a must-have for any R34, which pay homage to a successful stint the car had in Super GT racing. A white-on-white theme is pulled off splendidly with a set of 18x10.5" Volk Racing TE37s, wrapped in beefy 295/30 R18 Hankook Ventus TDs.
Suspension tuning is another area that Auto Select loves to get right. Here, they tuned a set of their own dampers for optimized performance. ARC stabilizing bars help keep the R34 flat through the corners while the massive billet Auto Select strut tower bar makes sure there is no chassis flex. The stock 4-pot fronts have been replaced with 8-pot Brembos, the same calipers used on a Ferrari Enzo. Repeated track use has turned their gold color into a slightly overheated orange hue, but the large 380mm Rdd discs are very much still in once piece. Stopping the rear end are 355mm Rdd discs mated to the now repositioned stock 2-pot rear Brembo calipers.