Nissan Skyline GTS-T (R32/R33)
Why 7.7: Same shell and much of the same suspension as the GT-R, one turbocharger instead of two, and drive to the rear wheels only. That made it a fraction of the price when new and for thirty years afterwards, which is why the GTS-t became the car the entire drift and tuner scene was actually built on while the GT-R sat in collections.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Sound
The RB straight-six is smooth and hard-edged at once, and the single turbo adds spool and dump-valve chatter on every lift. But boost flattens everything above 5,000 rpm, so it is a good six heard through a silencer rather than an event.
6-cylinder · turbocharged · 7,000 rpm redline · rated 6.5 / 10 for engine sound
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €24k (1993) → €35k (2026), trending up · illustrative data
Child seats · ISOFIX
ISOFIX was spreading through these years rather than fitted across the board — whether a given car has rear anchors depends on its year and market.
Children were expected in the back. Front-passenger ISOFIX effectively didn't exist in this era, and airbag deactivation was patchy — treat the front seat as a no unless a specific car proves otherwise.
Derived from production years and seating layout, not a per-car source. ISOFIX was standardised as ISO 13216 in 1997, required on new EU model types from 2011 and on all new EU cars from 2014.
The long version
Nissan sold the R32 and R33 Skyline in a long ladder of variants, and the GTS-t Type M was the one most enthusiasts could afford: a single-turbo RB20DET making 215 PS in the R32, replaced by the 2.5-litre RB25DET and 250 PS in the R33 GTS25t, driving the rear wheels through a five-speed manual. It shares the GT-R's multi-link suspension and, on Type M cars, the HICAS rear-steer system, but not the ATTESA four-wheel drive that gives a GT-R its unburstable feel — and losing that is exactly why so many people prefer it. The Skyline was never sold new in the United States in any form, so every American car arrived under the 25-year import rule, and the GTS-t was the first to become eligible in useful numbers. Because they were cheap and structurally identical to a GT-R from most angles, an enormous number were modified, converted to GT-R bodywork, drifted and destroyed; clean original cars are now genuinely scarce and prices have followed the GT-R upward at a distance. They still get driven hard, which is the point of them.