The Nissan Skyline (Japanese: 日産・スカイライン, Hepburn: Nissan Sukairain) is a brand of automobile originally produced by the Prince Motor Company starting in 1957, and then by Nissan after the two companies merged in 1967. After the merger, the Skyline and its larger counterpart, the Nissan Gloria, were sold in Japan at dealership sales channels called Nissan Prince Shop.
The Skyline was largely designed and engineered by Shinichiro Sakurai from inception, and he remained a chief influence of the car until his death in 2011.
Skylines are available primarily in either coupé or sedan body styles, plus station wagon, crossover, convertible and pickup/sedan delivery body styles. The later models are most commonly known by their trademark round brake and tail lights. The majority of Skyline models are rear-wheel drive, with part-time all-wheel drive being available since the debut of the eighth-generation Skyline (R32).
While not distributed in the United States until its importation as the Infiniti G-series in the early 2000s (the first generation Prince Skyline was imported, but sold poorly), the Skyline's prominence (particularly for the GT-R variant) in video games, movies and magazines (including The Fast and the Furious, Initial D, Shakotan Boogie, Tokyo Xtreme Racer, Wangan Midnight, Need for Speed, Forza, Driving Emotion Type-S, Test Drive, and Gran Turismo,Real Racing 3) resulted in many such cars being brought in as grey import vehicles there, and makes up a large amount of second-hand Japanese car imports to Europe and North America.
Starting with the third-generation Skyline (C10) and up to the tenth-generation Skyline (R34), the chassis, suspension and some of the engines were shared with the luxury-oriented longer wheelbase Nissan Laurel. When the former Prince factory at Musashimurayama closed in 2002 (coinciding with the discontinuation of the Laurel that same year), the Skyline used the then-new FM platform that was shared with the 350Z starting with the eleventh-generation Skyline (V35).
The eleventh-generation Skyline (V35) was another major turning point for the nameplate, as it dropped some of the previous generation Skyline's trademark characteristics such as the straight-six engine (replaced with a V6) and turbocharging (reintroduced in the thirteenth-generation/V37 model), and eventually separated the GT-R into its own line. Nissan decided to retain the Skyline for the luxury-sport market segment formerly held by the Laurel, while its platform-mate, the 350Z, revived the Z line of pure sports cars. The V35 was the first Skyline made for export to North America, being sold under Nissan's luxury marque Infiniti as the G35 in 2002. The Skyline (V36/J50) is sold in Europe, North America, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Middle East as the Infiniti G37 and EX respectively.
As of 2024, the Skyline is the only remaining sedan in Nissan's Japanese lineup following the discontinuation of both the Fuga and Cima in 2022.
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