Why the Nissan GT-R is known as Godzilla

• The Nissan GT-R earned its nickname of Godzilla
• The nickname was given to the R32 GT-R by Wheels magazine in 1989
• The Australian Touring Car Championship series changed rules in 1993 effectively banning the GT-R from competing

U.S. car enthusiasts have embraced the nickname “Godzilla” for the Nissan GT-R, but the moniker originated in Australia. And as Nissan’s Australian division explained in a video, it was well-earned.

After a 16-year hiatus, Nissan revived the Skyline GT-R in 1989 with the R32 generation. This was long before the GT-R came to the U.S. as a dedicated model, rather than a derivative of the Skyline sedan. As a righthand-drive market not far from Nissan’s home base of Japan, though, Australia got the R32—and it was a big deal.

Wheels magazine put the R32 on the cover of its July 1989 issue, calling it “Nissan’s new Godzilla” in reference to the Japanese movie monster, and the expected impact it would have on the performance car scene. A few years later, the R32 earned that nickname in spectacular fashion.

Like earlier generations, Nissan intended to race the R32, developing a version to meet the FIA’s then-current Group A regulations for production-based cars. Output from the RB26DETT 2.6-liter turbocharged inline-6 was boosted from the road car’s 276 hp to around 550 hp. Australia offered the perfect challenge.

Then, as now, Australia featured a popular racing scene dominated by Ford and General Motors (under the now-defunct Holden brand), with the annual Bathurst 1000 at the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales as the marquis event. In 1991, the R32 GT-R became the first Japanese car to win the Bathurst 1000. 

Nissan went on to win the 1991 Australian Touring Car Championship (predecessor to today’s Australia Supercars championship), with GT-Rs finishing 1-2 in six of nine races, and on the podium in every race. Nissan won the Bathurst 1000 again in 1992 over the jeers and boos of Ford and Holden fans in a controversial finish determined by count back after the rain-soaked race was red-flagged. Rule changes effectively banned the GT-R from competition in 1993.

The R32 itself left production in 1994, to be succeeded by the R33 and R34 generations, and finally the R35 GT-R that enjoyed an improbably long production run that’s just now ending. But the GT-R achieved what is arguably its greatest racing success—and found an everlasting nickname—with the R32 generation in the early 1990s.