South African Nissan enthusiasts were not allowed the GT-R moniker on Skylines all those years ago, but that didn’t mean the local range-topping GTX had to be a slouch. Not according to racing legend Hennie van der Linde that is, as his GTX scooped three successive Wesbank Modifieds class titles.
CAR tested a modified GTX for the January 1987 performance issue. Under van der Linde’s guidance, the cylinder head, camshaft, exhaust system and fuel injection system were tweaked to increase the 2,8-litre straight-six’s outputs from 105 kW at 5 000 r/min to 155 kW at 6 000 r/min and 272 N.m of torque at 3 000 r/min. The performance increase was drastic; the 0-100 km/h sprint was completed in 7,83 seconds and top speed increased to 219 km/h.
The best thing about the Zee conversion is that because it was performed by Pretoria Nissan, it was still covered by the full factory warranty. The conversion cost just R2 400.
