Nuggs Bunny
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- Oct 12, 2015
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- #151
I don't know how much you know about Skylines or Group A rules but you're way off the mark here. Nissan openly admitted the GT-R was designed specifically to compete in Group A under Group A rules so this is no secret. The BNR32 chassis is very much different to the HR32 and ECR32 chassis of the lesser 2.0 and 2.5 litre models. The RB26 engine was specifically built for the GT-R, as was the ATESSA AWD system that was totally different to the lesser systems fitted in the basic Skylines. How many were built and whether you can buy a road-going version is irrelevant; the whole point of Group A rules was for companies to take their average, generic family car and turn it into a race-ready package with moderate and inexpensive modifications so that anybody could compete on a relatively even footing. Nissan and Ford spending tens of millions of dollars to create class-dominating vehicles made it all redundant.Bathurst GTRs had RB26 engines with stock drivetrain. Just like the Holden V8s they had upgraded dog gearboxes, fuel management systems, suspension etc. Probably more in common with a R32 roadcar then the VN V8 supercar had with its road going sibling. The R32 Skyline platform certainly was not designed as a group a racing car from the ground up, that is absolutely not true. There were 313000 R32 Skyline series vehicles built with 43000 of them being GT-Rs. The R32 Skyline was an everyday run of the mill vehicle in every sense.
By the 90's, you knew who was going to win a Group A race before it even began, the exact same as F1 with Mercedes since 2014. V8SC had it's problems but parity within the field was not one of them and the racing is, and has always been, much more entertaining than some of the shite served up under Group A rules.Plenty of racing fans miss the variety of vehicles on show in Group A. V8 supercars become very generic & bland.