Nismo turns 40: these are its greatest hits

Nissan Motorsport International has marked a major milestone, with the company responsible for some of the hottest Nissans on road and track celebrating its 40th year of operation.

Established in the Omori district of Tokyo on 17 September 1984, Nismo was initially charged with building Nissan’s factory-backed racecars, as well as supporting privateer racers using Nissan vehicles. Later on that decade, tuned versions of Nissan’s road cars would get added to Nismo’s portfolio – though these were restricted to the Japanese domestic market for years.

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It wasn’t until 2007 that Nismo’s road cars would officially go global, when the Nismo 350Z went on sale in the USA. However, Australia would have to wait until 2017 before the first fully-fledged Nismo road car would arrive on our soil as volume imports, with the R35 Nismo GT-R leading the charge.

That Nismo GT-R was a headkicker. as you'll find out below, but it was far from the first scalp-taking Nismo. To help it blow out 40 candles, here’s the Wheels list of Nismo’s greatest hits.

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1987 HR31 Nissan Skyline GTS-R

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There never was a GT-R flagship for the R31 Skyline, but the Nismo-engineered GTS-R was very much the missing link between the second-gen GT-R – the ‘Kenmeri’ KPGC110 Skyline GT-R of 1973 – and the R32 GT-R that would become world-famous in the early 1990s.

With a fat Garrett turbo hanging off the side of its 2.0-litre inline six, the 154kW GTS-R was rear-wheel drive with a limited-slip diff and four-wheel steering, and though it was never sold in Australia, the GTS-R became a household name when Jim Richards steered one to victory in the 1990 Australian Touring Car Championship

R32 Nissan Skyline GT-R – Group A

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The genesis of the GT-R’s giant-slayer reputation might have been the road car that Wheels christened ‘Godzilla’, but the Nismo-built track star that was engineered for the FIA’s Group A racing category was a different monster altogether.

The road-going R32 GT-R was essentially a homologation special, with almost every element of its hardware, from its 2.6-litre displacement to its all-wheel drive system, designed to give it an unassailable advantage in Group A. With Nismo turning up the wick on that platform the 'standard' Group A-spec R32 GT-R was dominant, but when those racecars got an extra layer of fettling by Gibson Motorsport, they became virtually unkillable. Find out precisely why in our deep-dive below:

1995 R33 Nismo 400R

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Though the R32 GT-R’s dominance helped kill off Group A touring car racing, Nismo’s engineers weren’t done making obscenely quick Skylines. In the middle of the 1990s, Nismo took 44 R33 Skyline GT-Rs, dropped a 300kW/470Nm racing-grade version of the standard RB26DETT engine under the bonnet, performed extensive chassis and suspension upgrades and called it the 400R. Like the Silvia-based 270R that came before it, the 400R wasn’t intended to race, but was built to be the ultimate expression of a Nissan performance car for the street.

What’s it like to drive an ultra-rare, hyper-expensive, big-power beast from the 1990s on damp roads? Follow the link below to find out.

2000 R34 Nissan GT-R Nismo R-Tune

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Back in ‘the day’, Nismo didn’t just build race cars and the occasional limited-production street car – if you lived in Japan, owned a sporting Nissan and had a bit of disposable income, the company’s Omori Factory operation would happily take on the task of modifying your car for you.

One could pick parts off a menu a la carte, or - if monsieur preferred - a veritable banquet of bits from Nismo’s tuning catalogue could be applied as part of a holistic package. For the iconic R34 Skyline GT-R, one such option was the R-Tune package. Essentially 90 percent of the way to being a fully-fledged Z-Tune, the R34 GT-R in R-Tune specification was a fearsome machine.

2017 R35 Nismo GT-R

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GT-Rs and Bathurst: a potent combination since 1991, so when Nissan Australia finally decided to throw enthusiasts a bone and bring some spicy Nismo metal to these shores, it did it properly and hosted the launch at our nation’s most incredible racetrack, Mount Panorama.

With a 100-percent focus on performance and, uh, zero percent on comfort or value for money, the GT-R Nismo was a ferocious beast. Read about what it was like to drive around The Mountain, then follow that up with a bonus review of the 2020 Nismo GT-R. Though only separated by three years the flagship R35 only got better with age... and it never lost that Godzilla spirit.

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