Take A Tour Of The Workshop Keeping Old Nissan Skyline GT-Rs Alive

They’ve aged so gracefully and taken on such a mythical status, that it’s hard to believe that the modern Skyline GT-R isn’t quite so modern now. With the earliest R32 GT-Rs now at 34 years of age and even the latest R34s now at the US legal drinking age, these are officially old cars. They may be greats of their time, but that time is now long gone.

So, as with any old car, problems are going to arise. Fortunately for owners looking to give their GT-R a new lease of life, there’s a workshop in Japan that specialises in bringing them back to a factory-fresh condition and then some.

Hagerty has taken a video tour of Garage Yoshida, based in Oyodo, Japan. Said to be the world’s leading GT-R restoration workshop, owners of Skylines across the world ship their cars back to Japan just for Yoshida to undertake work.

For its full service, Garage Yoshida starts by stripping back a GT-R to its bare metal chassis which is then straightened out using specifications provided by Nissan itself. Once that’s done, an electrolysis bath is used to remove rust before a double-dip into an anti-rust coating.

Once that’s done, Yoshida will rebuild the car and even offer replacement parts made of higher-strength steel than it came with from the factory.

It’s worth noting that Nissan itself now offers GT-R restorations from its Omori factory, including upholstering the interior with R35 materials, but Yoshida is said to have been around long before. However, if you’re planning to have one refreshed, act quickly, with garage owner Kozo Yoshida committing to working on only 100 more cars before retiring.