Why can't you respect your own history like Toyota? Fans are upset with Nissan ripping this pristine R32 Skyline GT-R to turn it into an EV
Hans · Apr 13, 2023 03:30 PM
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The exact car Nissan is going to tear apart to make an R32 EV
When Nissan first announced that it will be converting an R32 Skyline GT-R into a battery EV, it won the brand many praises. Electrification is inevitable and if turning a classic car into an EV is one way to keep it on the road, then so be it.
However, when Nissan followed up its initial post with a video of the donor car, fans were horrified to learn that instead of rebuilding an R32 whose engine is no longer running, Nissan is going to rip apart a pristine, museum-condition road-worthy R32 to turn it into a soulless EV.
A popular tuner's car, it is extremely rare to find an R32 with an engine bay that is this original, and Nissan is going to throw everything out to put EV hardware inside
Fans flooded the company’s social media channels asking the company to at least sell them the RB26DETT engine, ATTESA transmission, and other mechanical parts that they are going to rip out from the donor car.
Others compared Nissan’s poor effort with Toyota, which recently presented a Toyota AE86 with its original 4AGE engine converted to burn hydrogen.
The manual transmission will be gone in the R32 EV
Building an EV is a relatively easy job since EVs are made up of just three components – drive motor, battery, and power control electronics.
Underneath an EV is just a golf cart with a much bigger battery and motor. Of course, new EVs like a Tesla pack very advanced Internet connectivity functions that allows the car to become an extension of your smartphone, but none of those features will be present in EV conversion of classic cars, so an R32 EV is just a golf cart with a classic car body. There's no real innovation going on here.
Also, the EV conversion job is definitely a lot simpler than the work put in by Nissan’s Nismo Restored Car division into its R32 restoration business (article in the link below).
To fans of classic Nissans, turning an otherwise no longer road-worthy R32 Skyline GT-R into an EV to keep it running is fine, but reducing a pristine and still road-worthy legend of a car into a soulless EV is sacrilegious.
R32 EV
Curiously, Toyota also converted an AE86 into an EV, but received none of the flak. Instead, it won huge admiration.
The reason is because former President Akio Toyoda (now Chairman), a well-known race car driver himself, presented the AE86 EV alongside a hydrogen-burning AE86 that still retained its original 4AGE heart.
Fans immediately understood that Toyota is showing that there are multiple alternatives to carbon neutrality, some capable of turning old cars zero emission, and that battery EV is not the only answer.
One of the many responses from fans comparing the different approach of Toyota and Nissan.
Another reason is that Toyota's AE86 EV has a 6-speed manual transmission - completely unnecessary in an EV but they did it anyway, as Toyota is still trying to figure out how to replicate the joy of rowing your own gears in an EV. So Toyota's EV conversion is not just a simple hobbyist job, but a genuine effort to contribute to innovation.
Further burnishing Toyota’s credentials is Akio Toyoda’s introduction of Koji Sato, his engineer-turned-CEO successor who is also restoring an AE86.
Not too long ago, Toyota Takumis (master craftsmen) at the Toyota Automobile Museum in Japan painstakingly restored an R32 Skyline GT-R at their own cost, out of respect for their country’s hero car, documenting the process in their Youtube channel. Oddly, that video has since been removed.
Over 15 years of experience in automotive, from product planning, to market research, to print and digital media. Garages a 6-cylinder manual RWD but buses to work.
