Nissan GT-R Generations: The Complete Guide from Hakosuka to R35
Six generations, two long gaps, one badge. Here is the entire Nissan GT-R family in order — what each car was, what engine it used, how many were built, and why enthusiasts argue about them.
The lineage at a glance
The GT-R badge has appeared on six distinct cars across five and a half decades. Two of them are pre-war-scale rarities from the early 1970s, three are the Skyline GT-Rs of the 1990s that built the modern legend, and one is the R35, which abandoned the Skyline name entirely. Everything else — the R31, the V35, the V36, the R34 non-GT-R — is a Skyline, not a GT-R, and the distinction matters enormously to owners.
| Generation | Chassis code | Years | Engine | Approx. built |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skyline 2000GT-R "Hakosuka" | PGC10 / KPGC10 | 1969–1972 | 2.0L S20 DOHC I6 | ~1,945 |
| Skyline 2000GT-R "Kenmeri" | KPGC110 | 1973 | 2.0L S20 DOHC I6 | ~197 |
| Skyline GT-R | BNR32 (R32) | 1989–1994 | 2.6L RB26DETT I6TT | ~43,900 |
| Skyline GT-R | BCNR33 (R33) | 1995–1998 | 2.6L RB26DETT I6TT | ~16,600 |
| Skyline GT-R | BNR34 (R34) | 1999–2002 | 2.6L RB26DETT I6TT | ~11,578 |
| Nissan GT-R | R35 | 2007 onwards | 3.8L VR38DETT V6TT | Tens of thousands |
Note the two gaps: sixteen years between the Kenmeri and the R32, and five years between the R34 and the R35. The GT-R has spent almost as much of its life dead as alive, which is a large part of why each revival is treated as an event.
1969 PGC10 — the Hakosuka
The first GT-R was a four-door saloon. Nissan took the C10 Skyline, dropped in the S20 — a 2.0-litre twin-cam 24-valve straight-six derived from the Prince R380 race car's engine, making 160 PS with triple Mikuni-Solex carburettors — deleted the sound insulation and went racing. It won, relentlessly, racking up a run of victories in Japanese touring car racing that made the GT-R name mean something domestically long before anyone outside Japan noticed. A two-door KPGC10 coupe followed in 1970. Enthusiasts call it the Hakosuka, from hako (box) and suka (Skyline) — the boxy Skyline.
1973 KPGC110 — the Kenmeri
The shortest-lived GT-R and the rarest by a wide margin. The KPGC110 used the same S20 engine in the new C110 body, and then the 1973 oil crisis and tightening emissions law killed it after roughly 197 cars. It never raced. Its nickname comes from a Nissan advertising campaign featuring a couple named Ken and Mary. Original examples now trade for supercar money and almost never leave Japan. Then the badge disappeared for sixteen years.
1989 R32 — Godzilla is born
The R32 GT-R exists because Nissan wanted to win Group A touring car racing, and it was engineered backwards from that regulation. Group A calculated turbocharged engine capacity with a 1.7 multiplier, and Nissan wanted to land just under the 4,500 cc class limit — which is precisely why the RB26DETT displaces 2,568 cc rather than a round 2.6 or 3.0. The engine has six individual throttle bodies, twin ceramic-rotor turbos and an iron block that would later prove capable of absurd power. It was quoted at 280 PS because every Japanese manufacturer had agreed not to advertise more; the real figure was higher.
Nissan paired it with ATTESA E-TS, an electronically controlled all-wheel-drive system that runs rear-wheel drive by default and can shunt up to half the torque forward when a lateral-G and wheel-speed sensor set decides it is needed, plus Super-HICAS four-wheel steering. In 1989 this was borderline unfair. The R32 GT-R won the Japanese Touring Car Championship 29 races in a row and took Bathurst in Australia in 1991 and 1992 so convincingly that the Australian motoring press nicknamed it Godzilla — the monster from Japan. The name stuck to every GT-R since.
1995 R33 — the eight-minute car
The R33 GT-R was longer, wider and heavier than the R32, and the enthusiast press punished it for that at the time. It has aged into the most underrated car in the lineage. The wheelbase grew, which made it genuinely more stable at speed; ATTESA E-TS Pro added an active limited-slip rear differential; the body was stiffer. Nissan publicised a Nürburgring Nordschleife lap of 7 minutes 59 seconds, and marketed the R33 GT-R as the first production car to break eight minutes around the Green Hell. Around 16,600 were built. Today it is the cheapest way into a genuine RB26 GT-R and the choice of people who care more about how a car drives than how it is valued.
1999 R34 — the icon
Nissan shortened the wheelbase again, stiffened the shell dramatically, fitted a Getrag six-speed gearbox and put a 5.8-inch multi-function display in the centre of the dash showing turbo boost, oil temperature, water temperature and g-force in real time — a genuinely futuristic thing in a 1999 road car. Then 2 Fast 2 Furious, Gran Turismo and two decades of internet did the rest. Only 11,578 BNR34s were built before production stopped in August 2002, including the near-mythical V-spec II Nür and M-spec Nür with the N1 race-derived engine block. It is now the most valuable and most requested Japanese car in the world. Full R34 guide →
2007 R35 — the Skyline name is dropped
The R35 is not a Skyline and Nissan was deliberate about that. It sits on a dedicated Premier Midship platform with the gearbox mounted at the rear axle for balance, uses a 3.8-litre VR38DETT twin-turbo V6 hand-assembled by a single takumi craftsman who signs a plaque on the engine, and pairs it with a six-speed dual-clutch transaxle. At launch in 2007 it made 480 PS and beat cars costing three times as much around the Nürburgring. Later versions climbed past 570 PS, with the Nismo variant beyond 600. It stayed in production, continually revised, for the better part of two decades. Full R35 guide →
Which generation should you ride?
| If you want… | Ride the… | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The movie and game icon | R34 GT-R | The most recognisable Japanese car ever made |
| Brutal, modern speed | R35 GT-R | Sub-3-second launches, still humiliates supercars |
| The raw 1990s feeling | R32 | Smallest, lightest, most analogue |
| The connoisseur's pick | R33 | Most stable RB26 chassis, hugely underrated |
| The R34 look on a budget | R34 (non-GT-R) | Same body, same presence in photographs |
GTR MAFIA TOKYO runs all five of those cars and nothing else. The Random Plan at ¥26,000 per person draws from the full fleet; the Premium Plan at ¥36,000 per person guarantees a genuine GT-R. Compare the plans →
Frequently asked questions
How many generations of Nissan GT-R are there?
There are six: the PGC10 and KPGC10 Hakosuka (1969-1972), the KPGC110 Kenmeri (1973), the R32 (1989-1994), the R33 (1995-1998), the R34 (1999-2002) and the R35 (2007 onwards). The first five are Skyline GT-Rs; the R35 dropped the Skyline name.
What does the chassis code BNR34 mean?
BNR34 is the factory chassis code for the R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R. The equivalent codes are BNR32 for the R32 GT-R and BCNR33 for the R33 GT-R. A plain ER34 or HR34 is a non-GT-R R34 Skyline.
Why was there a 16-year gap between GT-R generations?
The 1973 oil crisis and Japan's tightening emissions regulations killed the KPGC110 Kenmeri after roughly 197 cars. Nissan shelved the GT-R badge entirely and did not revive it until 1989, when it built the R32 specifically to win Group A touring car racing.
Which GT-R generation is the fastest?
The R35 is comfortably the fastest in a straight line and around a circuit — it reaches 100 km/h in under three seconds and has lapped the Nurburgring Nordschleife in the 7:20s. The RB26-era cars are slower in standard form but respond enormously to tuning.
Which Nissan GT-R is the most valuable?
The R34 Skyline GT-R, particularly the V-spec II Nur and M-spec Nur variants, which are the rarest factory versions. Clean standard R34 GT-Rs regularly trade well into six figures in US dollars, driven by scarcity of the 11,578 built and by American buyers waiting on the 25-year import rule.