Nissan Skyline KPGC110 2000GT-R 

The last of the S20

It carried the same 2.0-litre twin-cam S20 six, the race-bred engine descended from the Prince R380, one final time. But that high-strung, triple-carburettor race motor was exactly the problem: it could not meet Japan's tightening emissions rules. And that, not simply the oil crisis everyone reaches for, is what really killed the Kenmeri GT-R.

Roughly 197 built, in about three months

Production ran only from January to April of 1973 and stopped after around 197 cars, months before the October oil embargo people usually blame. The emissions law had already done the damage. So the Kenmeri became the only Skyline GT-R developed as a racer that never turned a wheel in competition, and one of the rarest GT-Rs of any generation, before or since.

A ghost worth a fortune

With fewer than 200 ever made and a backstory like that, the Kenmeri GT-R is a genuine unicorn, and the prices reflect it. It is the great “what if” of the whole GT-R line, the racer that history cancelled before it could add so much as a single win to the legend the Hakosukas had built. The surviving cars we can account for are logged below.