The New Nissan Skyline Nismo Sweats The Small Stuff

“Nissan Skyline Nismo” is an evocative nameplate, conjuring up images of the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line, touring car racing, and some of the hottest Japanese speed machines of the ’90s. While the glamorized image many American enthusiasts hold in their heads doesn’t undersell the motorsports prowess of golden era Skylines, regular models weren’t supercar-beating holy grails. Think Japanese 5-Series and you aren’t terribly far off. As such, it shouldn’t be surprising that the new JDM-only Skyline Nismo is a sports sedan, but I’d argue that it’s still exciting.

See, the Japanese Nissan Skyline is already sold in America as the Infiniti Q50. When the Q50 launched, it was a reasonably competitive sports sedan with a hideous optional steer-by-wire system that was best avoided. Keep in mind that at the time, BMW had just kneecapped its 3 Series by fitting vague electric power steering, making the rear outside wheel toe in as it loads up to promote understeer, and slashing the interior materials budget, the C-Class of the time was old, and the Cadillac ATS had an unintuitive center stack. By the standards of 2013, the Q50 offered solid punch, a decent interior, and nice styling, all for thousands less than the German competition.

However, just a few years later, the tables turned. The W205 C-Class was gorgeous, the Jaguar XE was a promising option, the BMW 3 Series no longer had a sub-optimal engine lineup, and Alfa Romeo was returning to America. The Infiniti Q50 became an also-ran despite its new turbocharged V6, an aged platform commanding serious money.

Which brings us to today, when everything’s grown a whole lot more expensive. Well, everything except the Q50. Instead of competing on price against the venerable 3 Series and C-Class on price, here’s a 300-horsepower twin-turbocharged V6 rear-wheel-drive sports sedan for four-cylinder 2 Series or CLA-Class money. Intriguing, right? Well, Japanese models just got more intriguing. A mere handful of individually-numbered Japanese models, but still. Nissan just released a new Skyline Nismo, and it seems to take everything good about the Q50 and dial it up a notch or two.

Let’s start with the engine. Based on the same high-output 400-horsepower twin-turbocharged three-liter V6 found in the Nissan Z, the Skyline Nismo tunes the VR30DDTT engine up a touch to 414 horsepower and 406 lb.-ft. of torque. Not huge gains, but still something to appreciate. All that power goes to the rear wheels through a seven-speed automatic gearbox first witnessed during the Dubya administration, a proven if not cutting-edge transmission.

Power is nothing without control, so the Skyline Nismo gets new Enkei alloy wheels wrapped in proper Dunlop SP Sport Maxx GT600 200-treadwear summer tires. After all, tires are the only four parts of a car that touch the earth, or at least they should be, otherwise something’s gone terribly wrong. Backing up the aggressive rubber is retuned suspension including new anti-roll bars that should stiffen this decade-old sedan up nicely. Speaking of stiffness, Nissan claims the Skyline Nismo uses the same glass adhesive as the GT-R Nismo, which is purported to have body rigidity benefits without adding weight. If that’s the case, why not use it on everything?

When it comes time to drop anchor, Akebono calipers and performance-oriented brake pads should bring the number on the speedometer down nicely. Considering how long the Akebonos have been laying in the Nissan parts bin, this is a fairly subtle upgrade but still one that’s appreciated.

Those with keen eyes should be able to spot the Skyline Nismo from a mile away thanks to its new skirt package with loud red accents. I reckon the new front bumper without a single-frame grille design is a wholesale visual improvement, and it’s reportedly functional, doing a better job than the standard bumper at channeling air toward the oil cooler and other vital heat exchangers. The flared side skirts are also visually intriguing, although the rear bumper seems to be an awkward blending of function than form. The little corner fins look wicked, but I’m not sure about the racing-style rain light.

On the inside, the Skyline Nismo gets a few key upgrades we won’t see in North America, like optional Recaro seats, heaps of red stitching, and a tachometer bezel in only the brightest red you could imagine. There’s a certain joy in seeing heavily-bolstered chairs in the front of a sedan while rear passengers are at the mercy of a standard bench, and those bolsters should get a workout thanks to the established capabilities of the car’s FM platform.

Nissan will only build 1,000 Skyline Nismo models for the Japanese market, with a further 100 Nismo Limited models with hand-built engines to come next summer. Pricing for the standard Nismo model, while not directly comparable to the U.S.-market Q50, carries a substantial ¥1,981,100 surcharge over the 400R model, the equivalent to our Q50 Red Sport. That’s an awful lot of cash, but at the same time, I can’t be mad. Hell, I’m more excited for this than the Nismo Z.

While the Nismo Z’s automatic-only status misses the mark on what enthusiasts were looking for, the Skyline Nismo is just a sportier sports sedan. It promises to be a little bit quicker, a little bit firmer, a little bit sticker, and a little bit more specially-appointed. It’s still a daily-driver with a big rear seat and a proper trunk, capable of family duty, road-tripping with friends, and everything in-between. In an era when Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz have pulled out of the six-cylinder compact sports sedan market, there’s some white space here for a very unique sports sedan that’s refreshingly simpler than newer competitors.

(Photo credits: Nissan, Infiniti)

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