[T]his is no ordinary R34. It’s special twice over, being a V-Spec II Nür R-tune. What does that jumble of letters mean? Well the V-Spec II was a more focused version of the GT-R that had upgraded brakes, suspension and four-wheel drive system, and the Nür was a an even rarer limited production model featuring a stronger competition-derived engine and named after, you guessed it, the Nürburgring.
Nissan built 718 track-oriented V Spec II Nürs and a further 285 Nürs to M-specification, which used more supple suspension better suited to road use. They’re now hugely collectable and worth north of £125k.
Now
the R-tune bit. Good as the R34 was out of the box, some people wanted
more and Nissan’s motorsport arm Nismo was happy to give it to them.
There were all sorts of upgrade parts available to buy individually, or
you could send your car to Nismo for one of two full conversions.
One
was the street-biased S-tune package, and the other was the R-tune.
Numbers are vague, but it’s estimated that Nismo carried out around
25-30 R-tune conversions. Nismo would convert any type of R34 GT-R, not
just Nürs, so when you consider that this particular car here is both a
Nür and an R-tune you can see why it’s so valuable.
The R-tune upgrade
included everything from suspension to aero mods. But the heart of the
conversion, which added around £27k to the cost of the car, was the R1
engine. Unlike the earlier Nismo R400's 2.8 motor, this engine retained
the stock 2.6-litre capacity but was built around the stronger N1 block
(also shared with the Nür) and featured upgraded cams and turbos.
Standard R34’s were rated at 280hp but made more like 330hp. The R1 engine put out 450.
Among R34s only the
Z-tune cars, which were bought back and upgraded by Nismo after R34
production had ended, are more desirable or expensive.
