Body kits that change the look of a car are nothing new, but a keen driver in Japan has taken things to the extreme by creating a Nissan GT-R SUV.
The car, painted in Nissan’s iconic Millennium Jade gold-green paint, has the front and rear features of an R35 Nissan GT-R, complete with ‘stove top’ tail-lights, wide fenders and even quad exhausts. However, the GT-R was only ever built as a two-door coupe, whereas this car is a five-door SUV.
In reality, the GT-R SUV is a heavily modified Nissan Skyline Crossover, which was also sold as an Infiniti EX.
Launched in 2009, just two years after the R35 GT-R, the J50 Crossover was offered with either rear- or all-wheel drive and used the same 245kW/363Nm 3.7-litre V6 as the V36 Nissan Skyline sedan and Nissan 370Z.
Front-end conversions are not new for Nissan, with the brand famously teaming up with a tuner called 'Kids Heart' to graft the nose of an S13 180SX onto the body of a Silvia coupe, and vice versa, to create the limited-edition Nissan Sileighty, and slightly less-official 'Onevia'. Just 500 official S13 Sileighty were made.
The Skyline GT-R Crossover, however, is not a Nissan factory project but the work of a very dedicated craftsman.
He started with the front end, which involved moving part of the SUV’s front bumper and radiator support, as well as grafting the new GT-R fenders onto the existing Skyline ones to ensure a better fit.
Once the car was complete, the builder’s diary shows his attention shifted to modifying the bodywork of an original KGC10 ‘Hakosuka’ Skyline, which the SUV can be seen towing, before attempting the rear-end conversion on the Crossover.
The work to mimic the R35’s rear end but retain the use of the hatch of the Skyline is significant, with new bodywork shown being fabricated and welded into place.
Even the GT-R’s quad-exhaust was fitted with custom pipework used between the muffler and tips to support the Crossover’s towing brace. It is a working car after all.
The work is good, as when shown in high-fill and primer before paint, the car looks very coherent.
The builder notes he aligned the suspension of the car to sit flat with the Hakosuka on the trailer, and the result is very impressive.
Nissan once tried its hand at making a GT-R more practical by shoving the R35 GT-R’s 3.8-litre twin-turbo V6 and all-wheel drive running gear into the body of a compact Juke SUV.
The resultant Nissan Juke R spawned just five production examples (of which Nissan reportedly kept two), as well as a one-off Nissan Juke R 2.0 (using the GT-R Nismo engine), thus making it a none-too-sensible solution.
The custom car seems to get better the more you look at it, and in a fresh coat of white paint looks as though it could have sat in the showroom next to its two-door supercar sibling.
So while Nissan never built an official GT-R SUV, this man’s skill and effort show that nothing is impossible.
With over 20 years of experience in digital publishing, James Ward has worked within the automotive landscape since 2007 and brings experience from the publishing, manufacturer and lifestyle side of the industry together to spearhead Drive's multi-media content direction.
