A Nissan has sold for more than £700,000 at auction, smashing through its reserve price. The ‘astonishingly rare’ vehicle went for the price of about three Ferraris at the Collecting Cars auction after a bidding war broke out.
The Nissan Skyline R33 GT-R Nismo 400R went for £701,400, and the reason is there were just forty of the performance vehicle understood to have been built. Ed Callow, Collecting Cars auction specialist, explains: “For around £200,000 to £250,000, you could currently buy a very usable Ferrari 250 GTE or 330 GT from the 1960s.
“And while you’ll pay more for a perfect concours-winning car, the values are still a world away from what the winning bidder paid for this 1998 Nissan Skyline GT-R Nismo 400R. With a production run of approximately forty cars, and only around half that number physically accounted for, the Nismo 400R borders on the mythical for Japanese car enthusiasts.
“Many will not even be aware of its existence, and even fewer will have ever seen one on the road. In automotive terms, the Nismo 400R is a unicorn, so when one comes to market, the collectors with the wherewithal to acquire one sit up and take notice.
“This car had already met its reserve at £550,000, but it soared well above that value by more than 25%. In the end it was just two collectors based on two different continents who were slugging it out for the right to own this revered 1990s performance car.
“We have sold more than 500 Ferraris on Collecting Cars, but very few with a price that exceeds this coveted 1990s Nissan.”
Collecting Cars say the Nissan was presented in period-correct specification, with very well-documented low mileage from new.
They report: “Under the bonnet is a twin-turbocharged 2.8-litre RB-X GT2 straight-six, producing up to 400hp and 346lb-ft of torque, driving all four wheels through a five-speed manual transmission – enabling the 400R to sprint from 0-60mph in just 4.0 seconds, and with a top speed of 186mph.”
