Continuing on with our features from our visit to Bee*R, here’s something a little more what you’d expect from the tuning shop – A good old fashioned Skyline.
What we have here is the new Bee*R D1GP BNR34 Skyline GT-R. As well as being a bit of a mouthful, it’s one of Bee*Rs most striking creations yet. And instead of being an R32 that looks like an R34, it’s actually an R34!
Gone is the famous conversion bodykit, and instead is a slightly controversial looking full URAS GT aero kit. I think a lot of people have mixed opinions about some of the newer URAS kits, but personally I think for a full on competiton car it looks superb. That kit and the signature yellow paintwork are just in your face.
As always the livery is that classic insanity we’ve come to expect from D1 cars. I like how this car has a similar Goodyear Tires livery to the previous generations of Bee*R drift cars. Sticking with what looks good!
Here you can properly see how crazy the rear wing is – check out the lexan wing canards. These help give the car stability during high speed drifting, which is useful as a lot of the circuits used by the D1GP series these days (such as Suzuka and Autopolis) have very fast entry speeds and corners.
When I shot the car it was sitting on a sweet set of Work XC8s, but these have since been changed to a set of Work Emotion 11R FTs. The car runs a full Brembo brake set up, as well as a clever double caliper system on the rear for the handbrake.
Inside is actually a pretty nice place to be, and despite being a crazy D1 car car it still retains a lot of the original feel. You can’t go wrong with a pair of red Bride ZETA III bucket seats and a Nardi wheel.
It seems like Imai-san is a fan of using carbon fibre in the cars he builds. Like his personal AE86, the Skyline also has these awesome door cards.
The heart of the Skyline is a beautifully prepared RB26.
Which helped by this monster HKS T40Z single turbo, pushes well over 500ps! It doesn’t sound like a lot compared some of the other cars on the D1GP grid, but one of Imai-san’s tuning philosophies is to almost over-engineer everything but run the car quite soft, making for a very reliable set-up.
Last year, legendary driver Tsuyoshi Tezuka spent most of the season driving the trusty Bee*R R324, so I’m excited to see how he’ll get on with this R34 when the season really kicks off!
Although it’s sad to see the famous R324 go, I think this is a more than worthy successor, and another shining example of the innovative tuning work that Bee*R does.
– Daniel Bridle
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I’ve got two cars powered by RB26 engines, an Altezza track car and a drag spec R33 GTR. As a privateer I’m always looking to the big tuning brands as to how they deal with oiling on the RB26’s especially when it comes to drifting and running the engine at high RPM’s for prolonged time. Do you have any info on the sump configuration? Is it dry sump?
The car is a work of art! And great inspiration for a fellow skyline/RB enthusiast.
[…] builds was a dream come true. You can check out full features on both the 2012 D1GP R34 Skyline here and Imai-san’s personal AE86 Levin […]