Nissan Skyline's 5th Generation

C211 GT-ES
If there's one thing that could be blamed in particular for the ugly sluggish cars of the late 70's, it got to be the oil crisis (followed by Disco). While the C110 was hot looking and some would go as far to say sexy looking, the Skyline GT-ES was none of that. It was so bad in fact that Nissan would not put the GT-R badge on it! The C211 was powered by a 2 litre turbo straight six producing 140 bhp. It was a cut down version of the L-series six as found in the Datsun's 240Z and 280ZX. This made for the physically biggest 2 litre engine Nissan or perhaps any other manufacture ever produced.

While the engine was nothing compared to the S-20 powerplant that came before in the previous two generations of Skylines, it does got two things going for it. Firstly it was cheap on fuel, therefore helped Nissan to survive the fuel crisis and secondly the L-series engines produced a lot less emissions while also helped with tighter emissions laws.

With the engine been so sluggish, Nissan introduced Turbo for the first time in its cars which is what Nissan is legendary for. While other car manufactures used advanced technology to make a car go faster, for example VTEC from Honda, Nissan just pop on a turbo whenever there's a need for speed.

While not been as sexually exciting or having as much power as the C110, the C211 is still respected as the car that took the skyline name onwards instead of dying of a death due to the oil crises of that time. It also will be remembered as the first Nissan to have a turbo charger fitted.