Author Archive

Skyline History, Part 3.

December 21, 2008

Continued from; “Skyline History, Part 2.

In the early 60′s, the Skyline was to take another path.   Autumn of 1960 the Italian designer Giovanni Michelotti was asked by Prince, to design for them a Coupe for the Skyline range.  The result was the BLRA-3 Prince Skyline Sport.  This car became commercially available to the public in April of 1962.  It was available in both Hardtop (R21A) and Convertible (R21B) forms.

Prince Skyline Sport BLRA-3 (R21A & R21B)

Prince Skyline Sport BLRA-3 (R21A & R21B)

The Sport ran the same GB4 engine and using the chassis of the BLSI-3, the wheelbase was identical to all previous models of Skyline but the shell was wider, longer, though obviously a sight shorter than it’s predecessors.

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Skyline History, Part 2.

December 20, 2008

Continued from; “Skyline History, Part 1.

As mentioned, the rest of the 1st Generation of Skyline did not change dramatically from the very first release.  Cosmetic and minor mechanical advances were made, the compression of the engine was increased to up the performance on the higher capacity and sportier versions and the car sold enough and was popular enough to maintain it’s production.

The second release of the Skyline was the ALSI-2.

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Skyline History, Part 1.

December 18, 2008

Now, those who know me, those who know of me and even some random people who encounter me on the street.  All seem to know for one reason or another, that I’m a fan of Skyline automobiles.  In-particular, the older ones.  The ones from before when the masses seem to think they were even made.  I guess that, in order to be the owner of 1963 and 1973 variants of the Skyline range, you’d surely have to like them at least a little bit, right?

So, what I thought I would do, is create a history series, that will cover a good part of what I know about the cars, right from the start.  The bits that most people miss out in articles because they’re not “sporty” enough, or the bits they chose to exclude because it wasn’t indicative of the now legendary racing lineage.  All that kind of jazz.

So, without further delay and ranting, I shall begin…

The name itself comes from a few years prior to the production of the car.

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A Tribute to a Great Forum

December 17, 2008

A few years back, whilst taking part in oldschool.co.nz forums, one of the member’s managed to stumble across a UK based forum, at that stage both forums were still in relative infancy, from then they have both grown massive amounts, retro-rides more so, likely due to the larger population base that the UK has to offer vs. NZ.

http://www.retro-rides.org/

http://www.retro-rides.org/

I think the main reason why RR is so popular and why it has done so well is that for the most part it (thanks entirely to it’s dedicated founder and current moderating staff) has managed to avoid being too into any particular scene and as such always has a diverse range of member’s cars to show, another key point is that it’s always about the cars.  There’s no off-topic, there’s no deviation, you’re there to talk and to read about cars.

I’ve quickly jumped onto their Project Sub-forum, to share with you, some of the cars, that contribute to making RR the fantastic place that it is…

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On my voyage…

December 17, 2008

On my way into work, on any given day I would usually see a tonne of cars that take my fancy, obviously some more modern and others of an older generation or two.

What I thought I would do today, is take my camera along for the walk.  Unfortunately whilst fiddling about making sure the settings were on high shutter speed (so I didn’t miss any fast moving vehicles) I, in the process, missed an absolutely mint Chrysler VF Valiant, and at times when I thought I would turn the camera off to save batteries on my walk into work, I also missed a few others that were worthy of being noted.

However, I cannot go back in time and as such, I shall post that which I did manage to capture, starting… from the start!  Enjoy.

Ford Anglia

Ford Anglia

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