Where it really took off.

What serendipity, that twenty five years after the first Gran Turismo game launched, I would finally own the first car I purchased in the game, in real life. 

8th grade Andrew had no idea what a Nissan Primera was, and had no idea what most of the cars were in Gran Turismo, but the first GT game was a pivotal game at a pivotal moment for many enthusiasts like me. It was like “YES, THESE WERE CARS I WANTED”. They were just so much different from the cars my parents had, or cars I saw at local car shows. Really my first experience with JDM cars. 

I started the game, and along with getting racing licenses to unlock races, you need to purchase a car with the allotted $10k. That purposely won’t buy you anything new, so you’re forced to cruise the used car dealerships. For whatever reason, I think I thought a FWD or FF car was easier to start with. So I looked around, and probably picked the cheapest car with the most HP. It just happened to be a Nissan Primera. I drove that car for days, and weeks as I built it up and ran the races and bought the upgrades. It really was a novel way to play a racing game. It actually taught me a lot about how cars were “tuned”. I loved reading the descriptions of the parts and what they did in that impossibly small text on a 20” CRT T.V.

That Primera really stuck in my brain and when I got my first job at an Infiniti dealer in 2001, that was when I realized the G20 was a Primera in the U.S. I used to love driving G20s around and I kind of always wanted one, but I also wanted a “fast” car and G20s were also still fairly expensive. So I eventually I ended up with my Talon, but that’s another story. I never forgot those G20s.

"A car more European than a European car"

From the in game description: 

“The Primera, unveiled in 1990, represented the start of a new era of front-drive cars for Nissan. Designed to mimic European sports sedans, the Primera featured a taut suspension, but some felt that the ride quality was just too stiff for Japanese tastes. Nissan stuck to its guns; after all, the company had studied the handling and ride characteristics of European cars during its involvement with Volkswagen, when it was building the VW Santana in Japan. Also, the Primera was developed under Nissan's 901 project, whose goal was to create the best handling cars in the world by 1990.

The Primera was an attractive car, though hardly distinctive. The car measured 14.4 ft long and 5.5 ft wide, easily accommodating five occupants and their luggage. Providing the power was a 1.8-liter or 2.0-liter DOHC direct-injection inline-4 that produced 148 HP. The latter featured excellent torque and throttle response, making it a favorite for sporty driver. Both powerplants came mated to either a 5-speed manual gearbox or 4-speed automatic.

Because of its taut suspension, the Primera was a delight on twisty roads, and although ride quality was somewhat harsh, the car demonstrated excellent high-speed stability. The Primera became a favorite for driving enthusiasts, and earned the moniker, "a car more European than a European car".”

So what about this 901 project?

The 901 Project was pretty interesting and it birthed some of Nissan’s most iconic 90s cars. By the mid 80s Nissan was building practical, reliable cars. Nissan had several successful sports cars over the 60s,70s and 80s but they wanted to make a big splash for the 90s. The 901 Project was an internal engineering goal set by the company to build the best performing cars of the 1990s. Famously the R32 GT-R and Z32 300ZX were part of this program along with the P10 Chassis Primera/G20. The P10 became the first Nissan FWD to have a multi-link front suspension. It has a multi-link independent rear suspension and it’s powered by the now legendary SR20DE, which is a high reving N/A 2.0L. 

Flash forward to the summer of 2020 and my friend Chris posts a picture of a really nice looking 5 speed G20 he spotted while shopping. He says he talked to the owner and even gave him his number if he wanted to get rid of it. Because nobody ever calls the person back right, right? 

A few months go by, and the G20 owner calls Chris, “I’m ready to sell.” 

“Sell what now?” Chris asks. Well, Chris is a man of his word and bought the car, then he wasn’t sure what to do with it. I myself wasn’t that hot on it, but my Dad thought he wanted the car. So we went and looked at it, it was super clean and had a few issues. So with a big throng of nostalgia, I ended up buying it. 

The car is a dark emerald green 1995 G20 Base model, 5 Speed manual and cloth seats. If it was a G20T for touring, it would have come with deep leather wrapped buckets, an LSD transmission, sunroof and rear spoiler. 

I look forward to sharing more of this project with you. If you’ve been listening to the podcast you’re probaby all caught up, but this way you can see what I’m talking about and I can go into even more detail about the project.