Four high-performance fours

Question

Accepted Answer

Among those in the know, the Nissan Silvia has an enviable image as a seven-time D1 drift champion and weapon of choice from Tsukuba via the States to Australia and the Land of the Long White Cloud (of tyre smoke).

But for the average Aussie who knows the three generations of Silvia that made it Down Under as the Gazelle and 200SX, this could be considered more of an image problem…

You see, while there are few cars, Toyota AE86 aside, that make a better drift weapon than a suitably modified Silvia, the 1980s and ‘90s line of rear-drive Nissan performance coupes are actually pretty capable machines for those who like to go round corners quickly, rather than with maximum smoke and showmanship.

Yet owning one as a sporty daily or weekend machine could see you unfairly tarred as a wearer of a backwards cap…

A further image issue for the rebadged Silvias that made it to Australia is that we often missed out on the all-out performance variants that the Japanese market was treated to. Our ‘80s Nissan Gazelle – aka the S12 Silvia – for example, missed out on double overhead cams, fuel injection, a turbocharger and independent rear suspension, instead making do with a carby four…

We missed out on the S13 Silvia and 180SX all together, and by the time the S14 and S15 Silvias rolled around (as the 200SX in Oz) we at least got all the good ingredients – basically, everything the local S12 missed out on – if not quite the engine outputs Japanese performance fans enjoyed, as a result of a detuning to suit lower octane local fuel.

Of course, since then, antipodean performance fans have worked out how to extract the best from these tail-out performance coupes using factory and aftermarket bits, and modded Silvias in Oz encompass everything from stock streeter to lightly modded Sunday driver to trailered drift or track machine.

The rumour mill has turned for more than a decade, or since not long after the Australian-delivered Nissan 200SX bowed out in 2002, with the rear-drive, Datsun 1600-inspired 2015 Tokyo Motor Show Nissan IDx concept providing the most recent fuel to speculation and enthusiasts’ hopes. But the recent company line suggests that if you want a Silvia you’ll find it under private sellers on Carsales rather than in any Nissan showroom.

Let’s recap the generations, then, taking a look at what we got, how they stacked up against contemporary rivals, and the gold we missed out on.

S12 Nissan Silvia/Gazelle

The modern Silvia story begins with the S12 which was known variously as the Gazelle (Australia) and 180SX/200SX (Japan and the US). But the S12 wasn’t the first Silvia; in fact, it was the fourth generation in a line that began in 1964 with the pretty, European-looking CSP311 Silvia coupe.

But the S12 and, to a lesser extent, the S110 (1979-‘83) set the template that each subsequent generation of Silvia followed, refining and improving it along the way.

In Japan, where it sold alongside the legendary DR30 Skyline, the S12 Nissan Silvia/Gazelle was initially offered with the iconic, Group B rally-bred FJ20 DOHC fuel-injected 2.0-litre four (shared with the Skyline) and later (1987-on) with the smaller 1.8-litre CA18 of the same cylinder count.

Both engines were offered in naturally-aspirated and turbo trim; 153kW turbo FJ20ET RS and RS-X versions look much like an Australian delivered Gazelle, but are easily distinguished by a variety of sporty body additions with the bonnet ‘power bulge’ (to house the FJ20’s chunky cam covers) the most obvious of them.

While other markets got atmo V6 VG30E-engined S12s Australian-delivered Gazelles in both notchback and liftback coupe body styles used a SOHC carburetted sibling of the CA18 turbo engine. The 78kW twin-spark CA20E –any connotations of Alfa Romeo-style verve are unintentional – was shared with the Australian series III Nissan Bluebird… as was the Gazelle’s sense of sportiness.

This was no high-performance machine but rather a hairdresser’s special that battled the likes of the Toyota Celica on the sales charts (and lost).

A very small number of JDM S12 Silvia made it to Oz as grey imports while some Gazelles have been given a retrospective Silvia treatment by fans of obscure Japanese performance cars.

The sole high for the Nissan Gazelle was victory in the under 2500cc class of the 1987 Australian Touring Car Championship, driven by a 20-year-old Mark Skaife.

But for most Aussies, the S12 was a miss, and it wouldn’t be until the end of the 1990s that we’d have a proper Silvia to call our own.

S13 Nissan Silvia/180SX

It’s possible that if we’d got the full-fat, hi-po S12 Silvia rather than the limp de-contented Gazelle in the mid-‘80s Nissan could’ve taken the fight to the excellent, front-drive ST162 Celica SX (and beyond). But because Nissan had been burned by the largely unloved Gazelle it shied away from introducing soon-to-be cult heroes the S13 Silvia and 180SX. We got the Nissan NX instead, which was more Toyota Paseo-rival than performance car.

Japan’s Car of the Year on its introduction in 1989, for the 1990 model year, the S13-series went on to become a hit, and Nissan sold heaps of them; which might partly explain why there are so many of them on Australian roads. Lax local low-volume import laws in the mid noughties saw the floodgates wide open and the S13 was one of the most sought after models on tap, for its blend of speed and affordability.

More refined than its predecessor, the S13 series scored a sweet rack and pinion power steering, a decent independent rear suspension and a mix of new and carry-over turbo and atmo four pot powerplants.

As a 15-year-old grey import – which was how most Aussies got to know the S13-series – the line-up ranged from the P-plater’s atmo SR20DE and turbo CA18DET Silvias, to the twenty-something’s 180SX which ultimately boasted a turbocharged SR20.

The SR engine, like the FJ series before it, became a cult in its own right – we officially saw the SR in the N14 Pulsar Ti and SSS as well as the aforesaid NX – often transplanted into all manner of old Dattos, to say little of the odd Toyota or even E30 BMW 3 Series that copped an SR between the strut towers in a cost-effective power-up.

But even in the 180SX and Silvia, at a bit more than a tonne, it didn’t take much tuning to end up with a very quick car that already handled pretty well. And, of course, with more grunt, and an IRS prone to dynamic camber change, it was easy to fry the tyres and send the rear-end arcing sideways.

The S13 series built a career, a legend and an enduring reputation as the drifter’s weapon of choice on it.

S14 Nissan Silvia/200SX

The first proper Silvia to make it to Oz had been a long time coming. Arriving in 1994, it’d landed some 30 years after the original Silvia rolled down the line; by this time our Japanese counterparts had been enjoying Nissan’s affordable hi-po turbo coupe over a decade and three generations.

Had it arrived a year earlier, the S14 Silvia – better known as the 200SX – would’ve had a free kick in the affordable performance market, which was still getting into its stride. But as it happened, the Nissan’s arrival coincided with the arrival of another hot Japanese turbo weapon that would go on to stamp its authority all over the 1990s Australian high-performance scene.

So, rather than battling the CC Mitsubishi Lancer GSR and Subaru Liberty RS, or trad coupe rivals such as the Toyota Celica, Honda Integra and Mazda MX-6, the 200SX was pitched into battle with the soon to be ubiquitous Impreza WRX.

Here were the definitive answers to the mid-‘90s $40K performance car question. Could the 200SX’s by now well-established 2.0-litre twin cam turbo, rear-drive performance coupe recipe convince you, or would this enviably practical newcomer posting similar power – 155kW in the Subie versus the Nissan’s 147kW; they both weighed around 1250kg – and an all-paw ability to slingshot from the mark no matter the surface or conditions.

Well, buyers voted with their wallets and the Subaru emerged victorious, yet the WRX’s greatest asset – traction – was also a liability and the one thing the all-conquering Rex couldn’t do was to hang the tail out. Well, not on a dry, public tarmac road, anyway.

It’s for this reason you rarely see Rexes at drift meets (yet a 200SX wouldn’t be out of place at a grassroots rally).

In terms of its engineering fundamentals, the S14 200SX was little more than a honed and refined S13 and by the mid-’90s it was widely known that you could extract big figures from the venerable SR20DET (now with variable cam timing), which made the conservative looking Nissan coupe – a facelift gave it a bit of aggro from 1997-98 – a terrific blank canvas for a broad spectrum of Australian enthusiasts.

S15 Nissan Silvia/200SX

Outwardly the S15 Nissan 200SX (nee Silvia) was the Toyota 86 of its time. And that’s not a bad way to view it, except that where the Toyota majors on balance and crispness of controls, the Nissan isn’t quite as sharp. They have virtually identical power outputs, but the Nissan, with the benefit of a turbocharger, has an extra 50Nm, and can very easily deliver much more.

Yet in terms of classic rear-drive coupe performance in the late-‘90s and early noughties, this was it, especially if your budget didn’t stretch much past the circa-$40K sticker.

Evolution again topped revolution in the S15, in which the emphasis was to refine, not redesign. Power didn’t rise from the S14’s 147kW which bothered those who were aware that the Japanese market version boasted 184kW, making the most of the S15’s new ball-bearing turbocharger and ECU.

The big difference dynamically came thanks to a helical limited slip differential (in manual versions), which improved both straight-line power-down and corner exit compared with the S14, which was prone to smoking a single wheel via its viscous LSD.

Two specs were offered, the Spec-S and the Spec-R, and while the latter brought larger anti-roll bars and a body bracing for the Japanese market, all Australian versions benefitted from the upgrades.

The driveline, meanwhile, was brought up to date with a sixth cog for the manual ‘box (a five-speed continued in JDM base cars). The auto remained a four-speed, but this was back when no-one bought automatic performance cars.

Clothed in an attractive coupe body that needed little more than a nice set of wheels to set it off, the S15 Silvia/200SX represented the end of the line for the S platform that sat a size down from the ‘FM’ underpinnings of the Skyline and 350/370Z, and stands as the pinnacle of Nissan Silvia development.

Buying a used Nissan Silvia

Four high-performance fours

Tags