I’ll have one…errr…

So I’d found it, a Nissan Skyline, also referred to as a Hakosuka. A car that I knew nothing about, but was soon about to research at length because having browsed a few Google images, I’d decided…I’ll have one!

Now I wasn’t in the market for a car, I already had a Qashqai that was more than sufficient for my needs. I’d had the pleasure in my younger days to drive and own a few performance cars, but as many will understand, priorities change and back in 2011 the advert went up for my yellow mid-engined Sunday chariot, “family forces sale”. It was a sad day to see it leaving, squeezed into the back of a transporter, but of course Sunday’s had just gotten a whole lot busier and as two became three, and with the disproportionate amount of luggage required for every journey, a 2-seater didn’t cut it anymore. Fast forward 4-years, a classic (though a classic I knew nothing about), I thought why not, this is bit different, let’s get involved again.

First question I asked myself, the “obvious” one, I thought – do I find Hakosukas on Autotrader or do I have to go to the more specialised Pistonheads? A quick, excited search soon turned to disappointment, both had drawn a blank – this should have been the first alarm bell – 500,000 cars between the two and no trace of any notable, elderly Nissans.

Undefeated, undeterred and massively uninformed, this is where the journey really begins. I’ll have one, I was mentally “done” without the faintest clue of what that really meant. The search starts here…

The beginning

I can’t remember exactly what sparked the idea, or even  where I began the search but I’d seen the image of a car  years ago and suddenly I was sitting at my kitchen table, family asleep upstairs, prodding the shiney iPhone screen trying to find out what had been tucked away in my mind for years.

After a big of research, remembering only that this thing was square, had 4 “headlights” and looked fairly aggressive, to my surprise i discovered I was hunting for a car from the same manufacturer as my school run fun bus. It was a Nissan.

Now when I say “hunting”, I was literally just hunting for information, for confirmation of what the car was. When I found some images, I was again amazed at how good the it looked, yes it’s old, but it has a presence that would catch the eye among any collection. So what exactly was this memory I’d had tucked away? It was a Nissan, yes, but it this was not the same as my sanitised, reliable everyday Qashqai, no.

It was a Hakosuka.