The ancestry of the mighty R32 included the R31 and, even before that, the Prince Skyline Sport.

In the late 1950’s the started making a sports car with that name.

There was also a luxury sedan called the Gloria-yet another very mixed metaphor and entirely within the keep of Japanese wordsmiths.

The R31 was a late 1980’s boxy car, fashionable then, and now as a retrospective icon. Its mechanical legacy is important as the R31, 3 litre motor, made its way into the Holden VL Commodore, in one incarnation as a turbo (sorry about the appalling pun here). Indeed the sunset of the eighties saw the birth of a mighty car with not only twin turbo power but AWD. It proudly bore the name “Skyline” which was a genetic link to the original “Prince of Light”.

Legend (not that Honda thing) dictates that we all have knowledge of the reception the R32 received in Australia by anyone not racing them. These chaps did see the pure performance of godzillas, but not in a really appreciative fashion. They were labelled as such monsters, which is altogether harsh and unkind. How dare they beat the pride of Australia’s muscle cars in nearly every consideration. Maybe the Australians should have dissected a 32 for engineering tips.  Pride is a most debilitating quality and rule- revenge is petty effective.

That was soon fixed by the Gerry-mandering of compliance for racing. This effectively banned the far too scary 6 -cylinder turbo AWD cars. This paved the way for V8’s to regain the pride of Australian racing. It does sound a lot like the time -honoured political practice of conjuring up nobbling techniques.

 I might add that the first attempt to do so didn’t work. That ploy was to make R32’s carry a significant amount of ballast, much like weighting up a good horses and so, theoretically equalizing and handicapping them. Yet there were glory years on the track before the aforementioned tactics succeeded.

This was the brief window, when the Holden and Falcon race drivers dreaded seeing the distinctive R32 round tail lights disappearing, into the distance, before their eyes.