Spotting a fake GT-R
What would possess a person to put a GT-R badge on their skyline GTS, GTS-T or any non GT-R model Skyline? What type of person does that? If you are reading between the lines you probably sense that I really dislike a fake GT-R. I’ve always wanted to run psychological experiments to understand this phenomenon. But when you question those whom put GT-R badges on normal Skylines they get very sheepish and don’t want to talk to you.
I’m guessing the tools that put GT-R badges on normal Skylines do it for one thing, to palm off their car as a GT-R. But who are they fooling? Well the answer is, plenty! The vast majority of people out there have no idea how to tell a GT-R from other Skyline badged cars. Even the Victoria Police have had some idiots do media interviews where they have wrongly stated GTS-T’s for GT-R’s.
Profiling people that drive fake GT-R’s
I have to categorise these people as kids that really do not have the financial capacity to own a GT-R. But then again, GT-R’s are cheap now. You can easily pick up a R33 GT-R here in Australia for 20k without a problem. Going back 10 years to 2005, GT-R badges on Skyline GTS-T’s and GTS’ was rampant. A term “fake GT-R’s” were born to describe these cars. I can confidently say that during the fake GT-R period the owners who did this did it because GT-R’s were actually expensive. In the early 2000’s R32 GT-R’s were selling for the mid 30k mark and the R33 GT-R went up to around the 50-55k mark.
In the early 2000’s I was on a lot of Nissan Skyline forums; Skylines Australia, GT-R UK owners club, Skylines NZ just to name a few. A poll was started on the Skylines NZ forum that I participated in and eventually got into a verbal altercation with a girl.
I think it is important to tell the owner of the car that he is driving a fake GT-R and even ask him/ her why she put a GT-R badge on the car. I once caught out an acquaintance of mine who did this and I asked the question why. The response I got was “everybody is doing it” and you could see that he was clearly embarrassed. Most people are when they are confronted!
What I am doing with this blog is creating a wall of shame for anyone to post pictures of fake GT-R’s. Maybe we as a community we can have some laugh out loud moments at the expense of these morons.
Am I being too uptight here? Should I chill out and leave these people alone? According to a SAU posts there are some very disgruntle people like me. Some memorable posts I found discussing GT-R badges on non GT-R’s. These are such a great read and highly entertaining.
How to spot a fake GT-R
If you are reading this article and are not a GT-R owner some of you probably have no idea how to tell a GT-R from other model Skylines. Here’s a list of ways to tell them apart.
- R33 Skylines have a recessed side indicator that is flat with the front guard. R33 GT-R’s have a protruding indicator.
- All GT-R’s have flared guards
- R33 and R34 GT-R’s have Brembo brakes
- GT-R seats have a hole cut out at the top of the seats where the head would rest
- R34 GT-R has the TV in the middle of the dashboard
GT-R’s have an amazing racing heritage and to the owners of GT-R’s it is an insult seeing a non GT-R with a GT-R badge. All GT-R owners I have met are very passionate towards the car and its history and that’s exactly why something that can be deemed as a small thing can be blown out. If fact I read something that resonated well with this topic. A fake GT-R is like a lady boy, it is posing as something it is not.
I along with many others around the world say NO to fake GT-R’s. Although I am not going to physically do anything, I am however going to make people who put GT-R badges on non GT-R’s very uncomfortable.
Thanks for reading the article and I hope you enjoyed it. If you are a fake GT-R owner don’t bother to comment as I believe all other GT-R owners will flame you. Joking. But I would like to chat to you about why you would do this? Just for research purposes.
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