Part 53 - Nissan Silvia K’s


175hp / 6400rpm, 1120kg, FR
¥1,866,000

Aw yeah. This is a JDM classic if I ever saw one.







Fun fact - the K stands for ‘King’ and refers to the fact this variant is the top of the line, with a turbo. There are also Silvia Q’s - aka ‘Queens’ that have an the luxury features, but no turbo - and Silvia J’s that are the basic base model.





This particular one has the original 1.8litre engine, however a year post this games release they upgraded it to a 2 litre turbo which was an impressively powerful little engine.

This car was also available as the ‘180sx’ - which is effectively the same car, but with a swoopback hatch and pop up headlights.





A variant was released in the States as the ‘240sx’ but in typical American fashion some strange emissions laws saw a boring gutless 2.4 litre truck engine fitted to it, and it really did not live up to the original Japanese cars.

True story, my family owned a Qs of these, and they were a great little car. We also had a turbocharged 180sx for a very brief period too. I had a cousin that would import many cars from Japan, and these were hugely popular to us Australians given the power to weight, cheap price and suitability for drifting.

I wish we still had them, because nowadays these are extremely rare now, since its affordability and driftability ensured any that survived dumb Japanese teenagers drifting them into Sakura trees, were eventually finished off by dumb Australian teenagers drifting them into gum trees.





But dumb teenagers weren't the original target market, as evidenced by the television commercials.







Yes, this cadre of cars is considerably more upmarket than what we’re used to.