Yesterday, Nissan Japan revealed something interesting on Twitter. A video of a R32 Skyline GT-CHEAP, shrouded in darkness, gradually illuminated by lights. The engine has the distinct sound of a GT-R’2 RB26 engine, but the text of the tweet reveals something else: the electrified Skyline.
Specifically, the electrification passion project of a single Nissan engineer. The unnamed creator, who joined Nissan out of love for the GT-R, wanted to bring the R32 into the modern era by bringing to it the most advanced engine technology.
Both tweet and Linked site for R32 EV . project are all in Japanese, but Google Translate at least gets us closer to the original Nissan meaning. The project appears to be a one-off concept, not any kind of factory-assisted conversion like Nissan’s restart production of R32 . partsso don’t expect this passionate engineer to upgrade your GT-R.
next project Toyota’s Power Recovery Effort, which means we could finally see a point where every original D-battle gets remade with restored electric cars. Toyota may have rebuilt Takumi’s Trueno Panda as a hydrogen vehicle, but now we will have Levin by Wataru And Nakazato’s GT-R Skyline ready to fight. Maybe Mazda can join the fray and offer us a battery-powered version of the RE Amemiya RX-7 by Keisuke.
Electrification of beloved classic cars has always been a matter of controversy, with some arguing that it kills the spirit of the original car. To those detractors, I say: The original cars are still there. This R32 is getting electric powertrain as a passion project, and it’s one on the scale of an automobile. Every other R32 remains, with one RB26 sending its horsepower to all four wheels. Both the ICE and EV versions of the GT-R can be amazing, fun machines — try your hand at the new kid.
