Thursday 12th March 2015

Nissan Stagea Autech 260RS: YKYWT

A fine specimen from the JDM oddity archive, with 500hp too!

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Fast estates are always well received at PistonHeads. Both the new CLA45 and C63 AMG wagons have been praised round these parts, James is rather besotted with his Volvo V60 Polestar and the PH verdict on both Leon Cupra and Focus ST is to go estate if possible.

Well it's a functional estate at least

It's the combination of an ostensibly practical car with a proper performance variant that's so appealing. They're cool because it feels naughty, the sensible pants family holdall with a hidden wild side. That many also look better than the saloon they are derived from only helps the cause.

Arguably there's no greater mismatch of incredibly exciting underpinnings cloaked in a dour body than the Nissan Stagea. To look at there can't be many more uninspiring estates: boxy, plain, upright and gigantic. No Shooting Brake pretension here, just a big old bus for moving things.

But you will be moving them very quickly in certain Stageas. This is (or rather, was) a Stagea 260RS Autech, a car that used the Skyline R33 GT-R engine and four-wheel drive. According to the ad Autech are marketed similarly to NISMO products in Japan so it's certainly got credibility.

Now we're talking...

Now we all know very few GT-Rs ever remain standard, such is the tunability of the old RB26DETT and the current VR38DETT engines. Unsurprisingly, that's also the case here. There are new HKS turbos, Tomei cams, a new intercooler, new injectors and a whole load more tweaks to yield 500hp. Should be interesting...

It would be nice to have that power shrouded in a standard Stagea body but the Ohlins coilovers, Volk TE37s plus the Autech bumpers, skirts and rear spoiler ensure it looks a long way from stock. Still, it's hardly outlandish and there are going to be very, very few people who have any idea what it is.

Is £14K too much? It's obviously quite hard to put a price on a highly modified version of a car never sold here but remember there was a (single turbo) Shed Stagea not long ago. The temptation for some would surely be to just sink that into a regular Skyline as well. Hopefully the GT-R specialists in this country can help maintain it and the condition appears very good at least. It would be useful to know when this Stage was imported too and therefore how thorough the rust-proofing has been since its arrival in the UK.

It will likely prove quite expensive to run, you'll forever be explaining what it is and the hearse jokes will probably be continuing for a while. But that doesn't stop the 500hp Stagea Autech 260RS being a very, very cool car. Hats off to anyone brave enough!

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NISSAN STAGEA AUTECH 260RS
Price: £13,995
Why you should: It's (pretty much) a 500hp GT-R estate!
Why you shouldn't: She ain't pretty, and 500hp Skyline GT-Rs are around for the same money.

See the original advert here.

 

[Dr G]

That's a cool car but the dealer comment on suspension is quite alarming!

[Dr G]

CrisW said:

J4CKO said:

Dr G said:

That's a cool car but the dealer comment on suspension is quite alarming!

14 grand for a car with shagged suspension ?

Dont most of these go for a grand on Ebay ?

True. I was looking at E30 BMWs the other day and someone had an M3 up for £20k. Don't they know you can pick up a 318i for under a bag of sand...

On a more serious note replacement suspension wouldn't be expensive. I'd be tempted to replace the suspension on any (decent) car approaching 20 years old.

Not quite the point I was making; I don't know if the vehicle itself is good value or not but it appears to be a premium price. When paying a premium price it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect the dealer to prepare the car for sale. If that means it needs a new foglight and its dampers rebuilt then that's minor stuff. Rather than making a customer think 'why have you not done this?' - why not just do it and stand behind the car as mechanically spot on?