Continued from; “Skyline History, Part 4.”
With Prince’s interest in racing peaking the S50 made the transition from family sedan to GT, the nose was extended 200mm to fit the G7, OHC 2litre Straight 6 as used in the Gloria. This homologation development was done in 1964 and the car was initially known as the S54A-I.
Skyline's New Badge
Continued from; “Skyline History, Part 3.”
So with the final facelift of the S21 doing it’s single year dash from 1962. 1963 saw the release of a new model and a new generation of Skyline.
The new face on the scene was the Prince Skyline S50;
Prince Skyline S50-D
A lot of the styling cues were taken from the previous model, despite the shape of the car being entirely different. Front and rear appearance made the car easily recognizable as the successor in the Skyline range, the now signature round rear lamps remained and the flowing trim that swooped under the rear panel (although changed for the new shape) was still a feature of the new car.
So let’s just say that you happen to be sitting on a bit of cash (maybe the house market happens to be extremely unappealing at this point in time?) and you feel like buying a “new” car for yourself that isn’t just another bland modern mass of metal.
1974 Mitsubishi Debonair - your new fambily sedan?
fortunately for those of us that live in New Zealand, the current vehicle importation laws allow for right hand drive cars 20 years and older to be imported and registered for road use with very little red tape. This technically means (as of writing) any RHD vehicle registered in its country of origin on or before 22 December 1988, opening up a limitless amount of options as far as classic or “nostalgic” Japanese cars are concerned.
As is likely the case around many places, there’s a lot of rare and/or simply badass cars, hiding behind hedges, in garages, tucked away in sheds. Recently I visited a friend I’d not seen in a little while, he popped open the door of his garage and sitting infront of me were two cars of epic awesomeness. One I knew about, the other was a recent addition to another’s flock that he is currently storing.
Here is the scene that greeted me as the door was opened;
For those who can’t figure out which cars these are. I would wonder why you’d even be reading this site if I’m honest, that and your capability to read badges must be fairly slim at least for the car shown on the right hand side of the picture.
