2nd Generation Skyline: S50 (1963~68)

From NAGTROC

S 50 - E Series

The Prince Skyline S50-E came out in 1963 and was built till 1968 in sedan (S50) and wagon (W50) form. It featured the new G1 engine, a 1484ccm OHV 4-cylinder, producing 70hp and in comparison to its predecessor had a more boxy shape. The S50 introduced the four round tail lights, a Skyline feature that was kept for many generations until the R34 series. It had large round brake lights and smaller round turn-signals beside them.

The car came with two transmissions, a 3-speed column change gearbox and a more sportive 4-speed floor change gearbox. Latter version featured bucket seats to support its more sportive character, while the column shift version only had a single bench in front. In 1967, the S50 series was replaced by the S57 series, which came with the new G15 engine, a 1483ccm OHC 4-cylinder with 88hp. It was the most powerful 1500cc engine in Japan.

Skyline 2000GT (S 54 Series)

Birth of a legend

In 1964 Prince started an attempt to go into racing. For this purpose the S50’s wheel base was extended by cutting the car off in front of the fire wall and adding an extra 8 inches of panel work to make a 6 cylinder engine fit in. Consequently, the G7 engine, a 1988ccm OHC inline-6 from the upper class S40 Gloria model, was installed to the car. In the beginning only a small number of this car were built to homologate it for GT-class racing, but since it proved very popular, Prince decided to put it into full production. The resulting car was called the S54 series or the Skyline 2000GT and came in two versions.

The GT-A used an unchanged version of the G7 engine with only a single carburetor and 105hp. The GT-B on the other hand got a 5-speed close ratio gearbox, full instrumentation, a limited slip differential, power brakes, a 99 liter fuel tank and a high compression version of the G7 with triple 40DCOE-18 Weber carburetors and 125hp. Both featured disc brakes with twin piston calipers up front and alloy finned drum-brakes at the rear. Later models even had flow through ventilation with small eye ball vents added to the dashboard.

Of both, the GT-B was finally the one to be used for racing. It finished 2nd in its first race, the 2nd GP of Japan in 1964 and almost beat the victorious Porsche 904GTS, which was a pure race car. This was an incredible achievement considering that the Skyline was a 4-door sedan. The S54 series was continued until 1968 and with its several race victories laid the foundation for the Skyline legend.

Prince created a racing GT Skyline In May 1964. It was based on the S54 and used the larger 6-cylinder G-7 engine from the Gloria S40, though the engine bay needed an 8" extension welded in to fit the straight six. When it entered the 2nd Japanese Grand prix they hoped to win the GT-II class. Competitive against the Porsche 904, the Skyline managed 2nd through to 6th places.

Largely due to the success of their race vehicle the Prince 2000GT (also called GT-A, GT-B, S54A and S54B) was released to the Japanese market. There were two versions produced:

• S54A - 1988 cc G-7 single-carb I6, 106 hp (78 kW)
• S54B - 1988 cc G-7 triple-carb I6, 127 hp (94 kW)

The B model featured three Weber 40DCOE-18 carburettors, a limited slip differential, 5-speed manual transmission, and power brakes. Both the B and A used front disc brakes with dual pistons.

S57

The S50 Skyline was updated to become the S57 in 1967. It used a Nissan engine, the OHC 1.5 L (1487 cc) G15. At 88 hp (66 kW), it was the most-powerful engine in the Japanese 1500 cc class.