Modified

Elsewhere in touring cars, the range-topping '87 Skyline GTS-R homologation special took dead aim at Group A racing and carried on the line's legacy in the category after the R30 began it a generation earlier. This particular HR31 was built by Nissan Motorsports Europe for the European Touring Car Championship and was propelled by an inline-6 RB but not the one you're thinking of - these racing machines sported RB20DET-Rs, a 2.0L version of the straight-6.

As we move backward through time, the Japanese Touring Car Championship (abbreviated to JTC between '85 and '93, expanded to JTCC from '94 to '98) was where a lot of JDM OEMs focused a portion of their works road racing efforts in the '90s, and as the initialisms suggest the series had two distinct eras. The above pictured FWD Primera Camino and Sunny are from the Super Touring formula period of the JTCC, which mandated four-door chassis and naturally aspirated engines limited to 2.0 liters of displacement. If you guessed both of these cars rocked SR20 power, you'd be right, and they mixed it up with Toyota Corona EXiV and Honda Civic Ferio in the series, as well as various Opel and BMW.

In fact, Nissan used that same racing-only twin-turbo VQ30 mill in the last years of the JGTC in both its GT500 Fairlady Z and earlier Skyline GT-R; that's no typo - at least for one season ('03), Nissan's Super GT GT500 R34 Skyline GT-R were V-6 (and RWD, too, to save weight, but that's not as unusual in motorsport). The Motul Pitwork Skyline GT-R was one such machine, representing the final year of the Skyline GT-R in the series before the Z swooped in.