Words by Alessandro Marrone
Photos by Federico Frachesen
If you are the sort of person bursting into tears watching “Bambi”, forget it. This Skyline is no PlayStation generation, it’s not sugar with water – it’s a shaker of vitamins and hormones to be thrown down in one breath – or it kills you or makes you a man. Godzilla, that R35 the most people know (at least in Europe), has the reputation of having performance worthy of a fighter jet, mated with a tremendously easy handling, also thanks to the all-wheel drive and the thousand electronic aids. But the R32 is a whip to your back, it makes you stop whining and forces you to take the situation in hand, otherwise it will crush you relentlessly, not like an American muscle car, but as you would expect from a coupe with rear-wheel drive and a strong, very strong inclination for oversteer. If you will not end becoming ornament for some barrier, it means that you have managed to tame it, and at that point the “drifting mania” will have already gained the upper hand over you, trying in every way to cancel your social life. While your friends are at the cinema, sipping an aperitif or looking for girls, you will be enveloped by a cloud of smoke, taking a bend after the other as if there was no other way to save the world – then if your back yard is a Dolomite pass, any excuse to rape the rear tires is good.
That’s how we knew Michele, fanatic of that purest and most intimate driving that is conquering more and more young people, who understand better the stories of their old ones, proper petrolheads excited for a control in extremis, rather than a torque curve or for the G force outputted during cornering. Never mind comfort, never mind the dual-clutch, there’s a good old 5-speed manual gearbox to rule with the left hand, since the driver’s seat of this Skyline is on the right. You read that right, Michele chose a Skyline R32 GTS, which for the uninitiated is a 1992 2.0cc GTR, with two doors and traction on the right end, the rear. Obviously he had to learn to live with the fact of having a cockpit as mom did, but after taking the hand with the grafts of the gears, it’s done. Few but targeted modifications, which mainly concern a new turbocharger, the removal of the system that allow the all four wheels to steer (HICAS system) and a light power upgrade, which stops the cavalry at around 240/250 horses. The 6-cylinder has a crazy voice, a glorious sound that creates high addiction, and the car’s weight not exceeding 1300kg – well it translates into a malignant want to pick up the needle of the rev counter, with a torque of about 280Nm, available already at 3200/3500 rpm. That’s why Michele loves killing mosquitoes on his doors, where every corner distorts the laws of the apex and the best line, and it is useful only as an asphalt strip to be brushed properly, with such a precise and communicative steering and a traction that allows you to throw nose and tail exactly where you had in mind. The R32 is the best drug in the world – and hear it roaring, muttering, making flames and explosions as if you were to celebrate the carnival in Rio, but in reality it is a girl with almond-shaped eyes that does not inspire all the fear that in reality you should feel when you open the door with the key in your hands.
The turbo blows and the desire to push yourself beyond the limits becomes a real physiological need, but for Michele certain secrets have become a valuable experience and could not have wished for anything better. Have you seen this car? With that long black dress, and that line that makes it look KITT catapulted into the world of Mad Max. The rear spoiler is large enough, it does not scream to the world just anything, it prefers facts to words, it prefers crashing your spine to the seat and amaze instead of telling its story in manga’s automotive world. Italian cars have a beating heart, the German ones are perfect weapons of destruction, English exude passion and history, while Japanese, like the American, give you that bit of madness that makes the sun rise in our every day, but the R32 can also do proper cornering, both sideways both drawing a textbook line. It does so with humility, it does that exactly as you expect, without disappointing. Never.