IS THIS R34.5 VR38 GT-R THE COOLEST GT-R RESTOMOD OUT THERE?
Restomods are awesome, well for us here at SXdrv. When someone takes a certain car and decides to modify it using modern components either from a newer car or new off-the-shelf replacement parts the end result is always cool. Ok, mostly cool, it all depends on the skill level and budget of whoever is undertaking the project. Some guys go for an engine swap and call it a day, but others, like Adam from AMT Machine Shop & Fab in Vancouver, British Columbia, do a proper job. In an attempt to modernise one of the Holy Grail JDM cars, the iconic Nissan R34 GT-R, the man bought a complete Nissan R35 and set about planning the ultimate restomod. He calls the result an R34.5, which makes perfect sense if you ask us. Now it’s not the first one of its kind, there is another in existence, but we like this one a fair bit more, it just seems more complete. The project has been planned for a while, Adam and a customer of his sourced a healthy, driving R34 from Japan and imported it for the sole intention of swapping a bunch of R35 components in that would come from a locally sourced car. Neither of the cars had any issues. To kick off the project, the entire floor and front clip of the R34 was cut away and on the 35, the body was cut away. With the 34 at the top of a lift and the 35 at the bottom, Adam tediously lowered and raised the 34 body while trimming the 35 base until it became a perfect fit. This gave such a precision fit between the two cars that no other metal was needed to fill any gaps, the combination was seam-welded together just like it’s done on a 35 at the factory. An extra section was welded in between the rocker panels of each section, but you can’t see it, and it was only done to add extra structural rigidity, a good idea for a car that will see some high speeds and a little hooning.
Doing it this way means the R34 now had a full R35 interior, and some manipulation of the electronics was needed to get everything working in sync. The lighting for the R34 is old tech, and so some clever tricks were needed to make everything work via the original ECUs, which it all does. One part that took a lot of ingenuity was that the R34 is shorter than the R35, so 4-inches were cut out of the chassis to line it up properly and all other components were shortened to match, like the drivetrain, fuel lines, hand brake cable and the like. This also meant the interior components that cover the transmission tunnel also needed shortening. The job is perfect, if you weren’t told about this mode, you’d never know it was done. The front clip is a combination of R34 and R35 bits, there was more space in the 34 so it made a few things easier to fit, but everything needed required a custom job. The setup isn’t highly modified, but with power being so easy to extract from the VR38 powerplant, the R34.5 has around 400 kW of power at the wheels, which is more than enough to have illegal fun on the streets. To give the car some better visuals, it was given a full Uran wide bodykit that the customer already owned, and it lined up just right on the body, there’s just the usual weird little kinks you see on most aftermarket kits. The wheels are Advan-style dual 3-spoke bits in 18 inches. These were a must, anything bigger just wouldn’t look right, but they were custom-built because they needed to clear the R35 braking setup, which they do perfectly. The centre caps feature the Roman numerals III IV V, for the R34.5 name of the car. There’s loads more to this build, but that’s what the video is for. What are your thoughts on this? Worth the time and effort? We think it is, but we’re also easy to please.
Take a look at the YouTube video from Roads Untraveled as he takes a close-up look at what is arguably one of the coolest Nissan restomod projects out there, created by AMT Machine Shop & Fab in Vancouver, Canada. Doing a body swap is for the lazy, this is a properly-built R34 GT-R using all modern GT-R components, and its done right in every aspect: He DESTROYED Two Cars to Build This Custom GT-R | Take Notes, Nissan | Roads Unraveled
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