If you love cars, make it a life goal to visit at least once.
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The exterior of Nissan Heritage Collection doesn’t do its contents justice. Like the rest of the building, the front entrance is wildly understated considering what lies beyond the sliding glass doors.
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Walk in and you’re greeted to a reception desk and two of Nissan’s funkiest creations: Autech-developed Skyline sedans with twin-turbo RB26 engines from their respective GT-R siblings.
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Think of Autech as something akin to what Alpina is to BMW. It’s a Nissan-owned subsidiary that builds the cool Skyline variants that Nissan won’t, like these GT-R-powered sedans.
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It’s hard not to be attracted to the Autech R33. Officially called the Skyline GT-R 4Door, it used the GT-R’s drivetrain—including the five-speed manual and AWD system—but its own unique fenders and rear doors.
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This is just one of the dozens of pieces of memorabilia on display in the front lobby.
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Walking into the main facility is a bit overwhelming, not only due to the significance of the cars present but the sheer number of vehicles on display. Just look how many Skylines I was able to fit in this one photo. You’re looking at about one-fourth of the cars in the museum.
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The collections spans from the early Thirties all the way to the modern age, with about 60 percent of the facility’s space dedicated to road cars Nissan has sold throughout the years, plus a handful of concepts.
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The other 40 percent, of course, is occupied by race cars, rally cars, and homologation specials.
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The crown jewel of the collection is undoubtedly the Calsonic-branded Group A R32 Skyline GT-R that dominated the All Japan Championship in the early Nineties. A Bubble Era masterpiece.
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From its debut in 1990 all the way to the series ending in 1993, the R32 race car went undefeated through 29 total rounds, making it one of the most successful Japanese race cars on the planet.
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Look to the right and you’ll be greeted to a line of spectacular mid-engine IMSA, Le Mans, and Group C prototypes from the Eighties and Nineties.
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Nissan raced across the globe, fighting for overall wins not just in Japan, but in America and Europe, as well.
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These are some of the fastest Group C prototypes ever made, and still record some of the top speeds at La Sarthe when running in classic events.
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Nissan’s All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship cars get their own section, uniquely lighted and separated from the rest of the race cars. What’s nice about this place is that you can walk right up to the side of the cars to see the details up close and peek inside, satisfying my lust to get an up-close look at all the custom carbon fiber pieces.
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Among the six R390 GT1 cars fielded in 1997 and 1998 is perhaps my favorite car in the facility: The singular R390 GT1 road car built to homologate the car for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
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Le Mans rules required the car to be registered in the United Kingdom to qualify as a true homologation. So it has things like reverse lights, fog lights, and turn signals.
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My favorite part has to be the one-off rear bumper developed to house the uniquely mounted exhaust exits. So incredibly cool to see this car in real life after witnessing its greatness on the internet for so many years.
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Le Mans rules called for its top GT1 cars to be based on production models. Of course manufacturers flipped the letter of the law on its head, building the bare minimum of road-legal units to homologate whatever raw prototype they could get away with. Porsche was the first to start the trend, then everyone else fell in.
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The R390 isn’t the only one-off homologation road car on display in the museum. There’s also this car the Skyline GT-R LM. Built so the racing version could compete in the 1996 24 Hours of Le Mans, it has a number of extensive changes to the aero, bodywork, and drivetrain.
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Under the hood of the GT-R LM sits a 300-hp version of the turbocharged RB26DETT. It also got a unique interior with Nismo patterned cloth seats.
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It’s not just the cars at Nissan’s Heritage Collection that make it such a cool place to spend time. It’s just how close you can get to the metal.
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This STP-branded GT-R competed along seven other GT-Rs, including the Calsonic car, in the All Japan Touring Car Championship. It only won one race, driven in part by “Drift King” Keiichi Tsuchiya.
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The coolest part about the race car section is seeing all of the wear and tear. The museum’s goal is to preserve, not restore, so you’ll come across this type of damage often while touring the facility.
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This GT-R Nismo prototype was the very car to break the Nürburgring production car record back in 2013 with a time of 7:08. It still wears its original camouflage and even its original European license plate.
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The details on this car are awesome. You’d never know most of the headlight is covered by a sticker unless you got this close.
Keyword: Nissan's Heritage Collection Is the Greatest Car Museum on the Planet