Under a grey tarp in the corner of the Sumo Power/JR Motorsport factory was a little piece of Nissan history, a dusty but beautiful early '80s 2-door coupé DR30 Skyline.
Parked up next to the two brand new race-prepped GT-Rs, it was in stark contrast to the high-tech engineering of the 2010 GT1s.
Sumo Power boss Andy Barnes filled in the details: "The car used to belong to the director of Nissan GB. Each year he would import a Japanese car; in 1987 he imported this one – it's been in Europe ever since."
"We bought it around three years ago after it had passed through a few hands. It was in a real state, so we started restoring it bit by bit."
"The body has been repaired and painted, and the engine and running gear made mechanically sound. It's not a full restoration, but it's road legal and lovely to drive."
"It was never sold here – we think it's the only one of this model in the UK, if not the whole of Europe. We have it as a piece of Skyline history."
The interior has been tidied up and looked in great condition: authentically period with cloth seats and those sharp angles on the dash. I like the 'propeller' Skyline logo on the wheel boss, the same as on the front grill.
The DR30 was a step up from earlier models with their pretty basic cabins: here you get electric windows, air-conditioning and power steering.
The R30 is credited with rejuvenating the Skyline brand in the early 1980s. The doors on the two-door coupé don't feature pillars and have roll-down quarter windows for the rear-seat passengers so you can open up all the side glass.
Under the hood is a 2.0L 12-valve, 6-cylinder fuel-injected turbo unit pushing out about 145hp.
The engine bay had obviously had a lot of work done: not quite as clinically clean as the GT1s of course, but impressive nonetheless!
The car has been sitting idle for some time – it didn't look like it had been out from under the cover for a while... But nothing that half an hour of polishing couldn't fix.
The car's biggest fan was definitely our own Rod Chong. There was a lot of stroking going on – maybe a little too much to be honest…
I think he's still there, trying to work out how he could ship it back to Canada. All for the sake of Speedhunting, of course…
Jonathan Moore
Sumo Power
Sumo Power GT1 Project
JR Motorsports