I'm Michael Eichel and I own MyColor, the business that looked after Asher's car, the
restoration of it and stuff like that.
My name's Ash Cosgryff and I'm the owner of the HR31 GDSR and I guess I love the colons.
I've worked around with Nithons for all my life and stuff like that.
I started with 1600s and the Skylines were just a natural regression I suppose and yeah,
got in with a good bunch of guys and had some fun with them.
They're generally pretty tough sort of cars so they put up with a bit of punishment which
is generally what I dish out to them.
I bought it to be a little project and had a 2.5 litre single turbo back then and I chased
power as every sort of young kid does at 2021 and at one point it had 370kW or 500kW in
the old numbers and obviously defected and so on and so forth so I thought well stuff
all the hassle, we'll go back with sort of Team Stealth I suppose and put a 2.6 litre
twin turbo engine out of a GDR into it and that's when the fun really started.
It was all to be original I guess was my stipulation.
The outside had to look better than it did when it came out of the factory but nothing
outlandish, nothing out of the ordinary factory and I guess you could say it really truly
does look better than it did when it came out of the factory back in 1987.
Having an RB26 in it that's got sort of 500hp is definitely a little bit different.
It's a handful of drive, it's fun though, it's good fun, there's no doubt about it
but yeah it's definitely a handful of a car and I suppose that's the other thing too.
You asked us why we like cars, you go for a drive in something like that that is just
so raw and to an extent uncontrollable and it's just hilarious to drive it's just you
get out of it with a smile from ear to ear just laughing and you can't stop laughing
for the next 10 minutes afterwards it's just yeah there's no suspension here or you know
there's no quiet brakes, there's no quiet road tyres, it's noisy, it carries on, you
know it will spin all over the place, it makes all the right noises at all the wrong times
and I guess that's just the love isn't it, to a certain extent, it's got to be love
mate.
Well you're looking at the end of the day and you scratch your head sometimes and you
go why did I do this but then you take it for a drive and you just go that's why, you
do a giggle and that's the end of that so yeah but yeah it's definitely a one off that
thing that's for sure, I don't think there's too many around like it.
This is a Nissan Skyline, a HR31 GDSR, it's my car and I guess you could say I love it.
The RONI 800 GDSR is made due to home location and group A purposes back in 1987-88, very
similar to the VL Walkintro at the time, which some of you might well know about, I've had
the car now for around about 8 years, maybe 9 years, it's gone through various different
engines and setups and all sorts of power levels and what not.
The factory I guess it has a 2.0L turbo, dual overhead cam, turbo is around about a 450
horsepower turbo, probably a little bit too big for the old 2.0L to spin up and currently
the 2.0L no longer resides and I now have a 2.6L twin turbo engine in there, the mighty
RB26.
Whilst the RB26 might not be the most reliable engine in factory form, this one's been fully
rebuilt by the guys out at RacePace Motorsport, I suppose thanks to Luke, Ben and Chris and
all the boys out there and so on and so forth, but I suppose there's nothing better than an
8000 RPM.
Everyone I guess knows what a Skyline is in the import world, I love my high performance
imports, just like anyone would love their Ford or their Halden I suppose, everyone has
their favourite car and turbo charging ports, definitely mine.
The modifications that we've sort of done to the car over the years are subtle, you'll
notice from the bodywork, which is courtesy of Mick at my colour and the amount of work
that's gone in is phenomenal, all the body is exterially standard, I prefer a standard
looking car to one that sort of stands out, not into wild body, bodywork or paint or colours
or body kits or anything, like the nice subtle approach and I guess that's sort of what I'm
about, power but with a bit of style and a little bit of history, so I guess a bit more
history on the car itself, there's only 800 made so you know between cars being written
off and destroyed and whatnot else, you could perhaps say there's probably a few less than
that now, there's only maybe between 7 to 10 GDSRs actually in Australia, physically
landed, they're actually in the country, so quite rare, you know if you go as far as
I say it's rarer than some models of Ferraris and Lamborghinis these days, obviously without
the price tag, I guess the reason why I've always had skylines is it's just the love
of it, you know a lot of people don't understand, I don't have expensive hobbies or anything
like that, I don't go out and buy expensive shoes or clothes or anything like that, you
know my hobby is my skyline, you know and every time you turn the key, there's no doubt
any skyline owner would know, you get just that, it's just the sensation of feeling,
the noise, it's the whole experience with the car, it's just the sensation of turning
the key and going for a drive up in the hills or just driving around even in traffic, I
mean these cars are fine as a daily driver, the car currently makes out of the 2.6 litre
of around about 280 kW, which is roughly 380 odd horsepower in the old numbers, the engine
is probably capable of about 330, 340 kW, so say 550 horsepower or thereabouts roughly
off the top of my head, it's quite responsive, the turbo selection and so on and so forth
was very carefully thought out to be small, yet not too small to be too restrictive and
so on and so forth, so the combination works quite well, the car is very light as well,
the engine is actually out of a GDR, an R33 GDR which does weigh probably around 150
to around a kilos more than this HR31, so obviously weight is on my side and so I don't
need as much power and traction is also a problem, I guess I'll sort of shut up now
and just let you hear the car.
As much as you need to pay the bills and all the rest of that sort of stuff, it's a smile
on the owner's face walking out the door and Ash has definitely given me that smile
and so that appreciation of what he's got at the end of the day makes it all worthwhile,
so.
Same as that SMS, 9 o'clock, 9.30 on a Friday night, the first panel had been sprayed, it
was a door and all I can see is this guy's face with a dirty big grin on it, go and have
a look at that as the message with the photo and I can see him as if I was looking in a
mirror.
The job and the body work as you'll see and as you probably have seen, it's just phenomenal,
it really is a work of art, it's artwork and whilst it might not be on a piece of canvas
or whatever, it's not painted on with a brush or whatever, it's someone's artistry at work,
it's a work of art, it's a work of art.
