Nissan Skyline
The Nissan Skyline (スカイライン in Japanese) is a line of compact cars and compact executive cars first made by the Prince Motor Company in 1955, and then by Nissan after the two companies merged in 1966. After the merger, the Skyline and its larger counterpart, the Nissan Gloria, were sold in Japan at dealership sales channels called Nissan Prince Shop.
It is currently available in either coupé, or sedan body styles. They are most commonly known by their round brake lights. The station wagon bodystyle was ended in 1989 with the introduction of the R32 platform.
Models R30 to R34 of the Skyline are still popular cars for modifying by Japanese car enthusiasts from the 1980s to today. There are available features such as straight-6 engines, turbochargers, and the high-performance GT-R trim. While not distributed in the United States, the Skyline's prominence in video games, movies and magazines resulted in many such cars being imported there from 1999 to late 2005. Motorex petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to allow 1990–1999 GT-Rs and GTSs to be imported, at the condition that they were changed to meet United States Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.
The 11th-generation Skyline (V35) was another major turning point for the nameplate. It dropped some of the Skyline's trademark characteristics such as the straight-6 engine and turbocharging, eventually separated the GT-R into its own line, and moved to V6-engined era, this decision which extended to all later Skylines. Nissan decided to keep the Skyline for the luxury-sport market. Its platform-mate, the 350Z, revived the Z line of pure sports cars. The V35 was the first Skyline made for export to North America, being sold under Nissan's luxury marque Infiniti as the G35. The Skyline (V36/J50) is sold in Europe, North America, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Middle East as the Infiniti G37.
April 11, 2010 saw a world record for the biggest ever Nissan Skyline meet and the most ever officially recognized on a track in the Guinness Book of World Records. This took place at Silverstone, United Kingdom at the ISTS event.
