- JDM enthusiasts are finally getting a brick building set of a boxy hero car.
- The first to wear the Skyline GT-R badge, the full-size version of this fierce little coupe racked up the victories in Japanese touring car racing.
- The set comes with additional parts to customize the car for racing, metal pieces, and a matching Hot Wheels model.
The enthusiast nickname for the KPGC-10 chassis Skyline GT-R is hakosuka: “hako” for “box” and “suka” as an abbreviation of the Japanese pronunciation of Skyline. It’s literally the boxiest of the Skyline breed, and as such, you have to wonder why no one has ever made a model out of interlocking bricks. Only the Volvo 240 would be a more suitable subject for the medium.
Well, wonder no longer, because Mattel’s Brick Shop has finally given vintage JDM iron fans just what they wanted. Released in a hefty 1:16 scale, the model is made up of 833 pieces, can be customized for road or race spec, and of course comes with a matching Hot Wheels die-cast to go with.
It’s also the first Nissan to be built in partnership with Mattel Brick Shop, which means there may be more models in the pipeline down the road. A classic Datsun 510 or 240Z? We’ll just have to wait and see.
If you’re not up to speed on what made the first Skyline GT-R so special, here’s a quick summary. As part of the 1960s homogenization of the Japanese auto industry, Nissan had snapped up Prince, a higher-end manufacturer. The former Prince engineers operated a bit like the specialists within Porsche that build its GT cars, and they were strongly interested in motorsport.
First, those engineers pulled off the classic trick of taking the engine from one of their larger sedans and stuffing it into the nose of a mid-sizer. This move created the inline-six-powered Skyline 2000GT, which had some initial success.
The C10 generation of Skyline received further sorting out, and in 1969, Nissan launched the 2000 GT-R, first as a sedan and later a coupe. These cars were enormously competitive in Japanese touring car racing, with 50 racing victories by 1972.
Part of the hakosuka'’s heritage is the internal rivalry between Nissan’s engineers and those who had originally worked for Prince. The GT-R’s 2.0-liter inline-six was also installed in a rare version of the contemporary 240Z called the Z432, and these competed directly against the Skylines. However, the team formerly working for Prince kept all the best racing parts for themselves.
