Pristine Nissan Pulsar GTI-R for sale

Most of us on this website get a bit giddy over a good homologation special. Audi Sport Quattros, BMW E30 M3s, Lancia Delta HF Intergrales and many more have all brought a pinch of motorsport magic to us mere mortals, providing at least a glimpse of what our racing heroes experienced while on the job.

But for all the specials that have helped their respective manufacturers to great success in racing, there are countless others that never quite delivered where it mattered most. The Ford RS200, for instance, made its Group B debut during the era’s final year in 1986 and struggled to match the front-running pace. It’s a similar story for the Citroen BX 4TC, but while the RS200 is widely considered a Group B legend despite its lack of silverware, the 4TC’s woeful pace led its maker to destroy all production cars that had yet to be sold. Fortunately, the same fate didn’t befall the Nissan Pulsar (or Sunny here in Britain) GTI-R like the one for sale here.

While rallying’s downshift from the Group B to Group A ruleset in 1988 was an unpopular one at first, with prototype-like monsters making way for stripped-out hatchbacks with at least half the power, it did ultimately lead to a boom in manufacturer interest. Among them was Nissan, which saw Lancia’s family hatch running rings around the competition and thought: ‘we could do that with the Sunny.’ And so it set about preparing a hot version of its mild and dreary hatch to homologate it for the brutal environments of the World Rally Championship.

It was an uphill battle from the get-go. Series regulars Lancia and Toyota already had years worth of rallying experience under their belts and with several titles between them, Nissan’s occasional assaults on the WRC yielded a handful of victories over the previous two decades. That didn’t stop it from throwing everything in its arsenal to bring the Sunny up to spec, including the installation of an all-wheel drive system, turbocharging the SR20 four-pot engine and whacking a massive intercooler on top of it, resulting in the signature bonnet bulge with vents scattered all over the place.

Being a Group A car meant the road-going version was almost identical to the rally car, albeit with an actual interior. The production GTI-R kept the WRC machine’s all-wheel drive system, mustered an impressive 230hp in JDM Pulsar guise like this one (European Sunny versions developed a smidgen less owing to emission rules) and could hit 62mph from a standstill in 5.4 seconds. That’s a second faster than a Mk8.5 GTI and only a whisker off a Golf R, all from a car that’s 35 years old. Barmy.

Nissan did manage a podium at Rally Sweden in 1992, but the Pulsar/Sunny GTI-R proved far more competitive at the lower rungs in private hands than it did as a factory-backed WRC machine. Still, its bonkers looks and punchy performance earned it a cult following, and they’re now in seriously high demand for collectors with a penchant for rally and/or JDM specials. Finding one is difficult, let alone a stock example that’s been as well cared for as this one. The only mods made to this 1992 car (imported from Japan in 2021) is a set of BBS wheels, which look way better than the original seven-spokes. And then there’s the price, which is £39,950. Imagine telling someone in 1992 that their Nissan Sunny would be worth £50 shy of £40k. The thing is, though, that it’s not hard to imagine this one finding an owner at the price, or that another, even sweeter example could come along costing another £10k.