For many enthusiasts, the Skyline GT-R means a two-door coupe. This 1970 example is something else entirely: a four-door PGC10.
Before the KPGC10 hardtop arrived in October 1970, the C10 GT-R was a four-door sedan — the same S20 twin-cam straight-six, the same competition-bred brief, one more set of doors. Auto Messe Web puts total four-door production at 832 cars, and notes that many were raced or modified, which helps explain why original-looking examples are difficult to find today.
The owner of this red one — the feature identifies him by surname only, Nakamura — bought it in 1979. He was sixteen. He did not yet have a license. Nakamura says the car had had just one previous owner when he bought it.
Seven GT-Rs, one survivor
According to Auto Messe Web, Nakamura owned seven GT-Rs over the years. This is the only one he kept.
About twenty years ago he had it restored using genuine new Nissan parts rather than reproductions. For the seats, he sourced good-condition original items rather than retrimming them in reproduction upholstery. It is the kind of detail that matters greatly in a restoration, even if it is easy to miss in photographs.
The car is not a concours-frozen exhibit. It keeps its original bullet-style twin-outlet steel muffler, wears export-market Nissan emblems, and runs 14×5.5J wheels sourced from another model. Auto Messe Web also notes it carries the so-called "45 grille" found on later-production four-doors, which the article estimates leaves somewhere around 400-odd cars of that specification. We would treat that number as the publication's estimate rather than a verified production figure.
Why this GT-R has no wipers
The line from the feature that will stick with most readers is about weather. Nakamura, per the article, does not drive the car in the rain — and says that therefore he does not need wipers.
The remark lands like a punchline, but it also sums up his preservation strategy. The car's condition reflects both a major restoration and his longstanding refusal to drive it in the wet.
Why the four-door PGC10 matters
For an overseas audience raised on the R32 generation and what followed, the four-door GT-R is the part of the lineage that tends to get skipped. It should not be: it is where the S20 engine and the GT-R name entered production. The four-door was also built in smaller numbers than the hardtop that replaced it, and Auto Messe Web says many examples were raced or modified.
Few ownership stories are more personal. Nakamura bought this GT-R before he could legally drive it and kept it while the other GT-Rs came and went — a thread that runs through the documentation and preservation work now gathering around these cars.