Images courtesy of Nissan/NISMO
When the NISMO Heritage Parts department was launched last year it offered a selection of OEM replacement parts for just the R32 generation of the beloved Skyline GT-R. It made sense for Nissan to kick off a potentially long-term classics program under their motorsports moniker and with their winningest creation at the forefront.
The Group A racing version of the R32 gave the GT-R its well-known “Godzilla” nickname, and though there will always be a few annoying let-me-adjust-my-glasses types that will hark on and on about how much heavier and less focused the later R33 and R34 generations became (while conveniently forgetting that the car began as a pretty spartan RWD), it’s pretty safe to say that the cars made famous by The Fast and the Furious generation carried the legacy forward on their own merits.
Following an announcement made by Nissan last night, enthusiasts of the R33 and R34 persuasion can now look forward to OEM support for their cars too. The catalog covers areas like trim and bumper covers, some auxiliary pieces of the powertrain, and of course plenty of badges, but they also cater to the less-sexy stuff that true enthusiasts spend way too much time sourcing secondhand. Items like window switches, brake lines, plastic ducting pieces, and the kind stuff that was never really valuable and therefore rarely saved by anyone with the goal of resale decades in the future. The full catalog, including the existing R32 offerings, now numbers around 160 pieces.
This parts department isn’t a simple case of selling boxes of new old stock parts that were just sitting around in the back of the factory though (can you imagine?), and considering how these already-popular cars are only getting more and more desirable in stock form for the new wave of collectors coming of age, it would be a wise guess to assume Nissan will keep adding to the list of parts available to support the “golden age” of its most significant performance car (sorry Z). Right now you can only browse the catalog on a NISMO site registered in Japan (link here), but with the 25-year rule getting ready to absorb a literal boatload of legal R33s and R34s into the US in the next decade, perhaps they will expand to the point where you don’t need to order this stuff from a friend of a friend with a Japanese postal address.
It should be clarified who the “they” really is though, because it’s not just Nissan. Nissan and Nissan Motorsport (NISMO) are working in collaboration with longtime Nissan tuning and racing partner Autech Japan. With the NA MX-5 Miata receiving official attention from Mazda and now more GT-R parts from the source, we bet this trend will continue wherein the boy racer all-stars of old become candidates for bonafide restorations or factory-spec collections.
