AutoTrader Find of the Week: 2001 Nissan Skyline is a Holy Grail Car

Growing old really sucks for the most part. Your back hurts for some reason, and every hangover makes you feel like you’re on your deathbed.

But time’s grim march forward does have some benefits. Case in point, the once complete unobtainium that is the Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R is now becoming more frequently seen on North American shores.

With all R34 model years firmly past Canada’s 15-year import rule — and with some early models even slipping past the United States’ stringent 25-year rule — you can finally find the R34 GT-R you’ve always dreamed of.

There are actually several examples of R34 GT-Rs currently for sale on AutoTrader, and dozens more of the lesser, though still very desirable (and cool), GT-T models.

But I think this 2001 example for sale right now in Oakville, Ont., finished in Sparkling Silver and tuned by Nismo is everything you could ever want in an R34 GT-R.

The car is being offered for sale by a private dealer, Amin Durrani, who goes by “R34JPN” on social media and seems to have made a habit of importing and selling R34 Skylines. Not all heroes wear capes.

R34JPN is offering the car with a mountain of documentation. Included are the original owner’s manual, maintenance guide, certifications, invoices, and service history from Nissan and Nismo.

The price is through the roof, but that’s to be expected because this may be the absolute most desirable car, the Holy Grail, for an entire generation.

If you’re over, say, 50 years old and don’t understand the hype around a 24-year-old Nissan with the steering wheel on the wrong side, let me try to put this in a context you can understand.

A Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R is to Millennials what a 426 Hemi ‘Cuda might be to Boomers or a Buick Grand National GNX might be to Gen X. It is a hyper rare, super high-performance edition of a model that defines an entire car culture — so much so it is widely regarded as the best, if not the most iconic of its given era.

However, two important though insidiously complementary factors elevate the R34 GT-R from so many other genre-defining icons.

First is the R34’s over-representation in the media. The Fast and The Furious, Gran Turismo, Initial D — the R34’s screen time seems almost unrivalled. It gives the 1967 Mustang fastback a run for its money. And that’s really saying something, considering that the Mustang even managed to infiltrate Japanese media quite a bit even during the heyday of the Skyline GT-R.

The very shape of the R34 is omnipresent in the minds of Millennial car enthusiasts. However, what separates it from past icons, and why it makes North American Millennials froth at the mouth, is that we never got to see one in the flesh. 

Go to any innocuous “cruise night” any given summer weekend, and you'll see a ‘Cuda or a Grand National — maybe not a Hemi or a GNX, but you’ll see one. But the Nissan Skyline was never sold in North America, and so far as we Millennials were concerned, it was rarer, more special, and more desirable than any classic muscle car — or even exotic supercar. Ferraris are regular traffic compared to this Nissan.

The R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R is like a 20-foot great white shark. Growing up, you always knew it was out there somewhere. But you had a better chance of being struck by lightning than seeing one. It was practically an urban legend.

I remember during a trip to England when I was 15 years old, I spotted one on the road out of the window of a tour bus. The day’s tourist activities had been so long and the bus ride so mercilessly absent of washroom breaks that I honestly thought I might have hallucinated it.

Luckily, this particular R34 is not a badly-needing-pee-break-induced hallucination. 

What it is, though, is everything we ever talked about wanting in a Skyline when we were kids.

Obviously there’s the table stakes of the epic RB26 inline-six cylinder, twin-turbocharged engine, six-speed manual transmission, and highly advanced all-wheel-drive system with rear steering.

But then there’s just a laundry list of borderline-perfect modifications. Tasteful, understated, and period-correct.

The Nismo tuning came with a Nismo front bumper, skirting kit, and rear under-spoiler, as well as an ECU tune. The rest is the stuff of your Need for Speed: Underground dreams — Brembo brakes, HKS intake and exhaust, Greddy intercooler, Bride racing seats, and BBS wheels.

The cherry on top? A Japanese police radar. That is just chef’s kiss perfection.

There are, of course, even more desirable R34 GT-Rs out there. Obviously, bone stock models will always fetch a higher price. Actual Nismo edition models and, of course, V-Spec editions are the most rare and coveted. 

This car is what I was fantasizing about when I was a teenager, when the R34 only existed in my Xbox and knowing it could be real feels surreal. Owning this car would be like owning a pet Tyrannosaurus or becoming a Power Ranger. It's a childhood fantasy that shouldn’t exist but does.

And sure, it might be down-payment-on-a-house expensive (and then some), but hey, I’m a Millennial. I was never going to own a house anyway.