It would be a crime to close ‘Japan Month’ to Speedhunters without discussing one of the most legendary cars in the country: the HKS Zero-R.
It is a car that is steeped in mystery, with countless blogs and forums that focus on merging its true history and tracing his journey over the years. Price figures fluctuate game, just like estimates of the number of zero-rs produced and the exact timeline of their creation.
The late 1980s were a time of technological innovation and excess, and in 1989 HKs wanted the action, using the brand new BNR32 Nissan Skyline GT-R as the basis. But here is the crucial detail: this is not Nissan Skyline GT-R.
The Zero-R was the attempt by HKS to create their own Supercar based on an already competent production chassis, just like Alpina, Ruf and Brabus did with their creations at that time. This was not only a coordination package for the BNR32 HKS made sufficient changes to the Skyline GT-R to justify homologation for legality on the road. However, the problem was the astronomical costs.
Homologation in Japan in the nineties was terribly difficult and expensive, and despite the technical expertise and passion behind the Zero-R project, the financial reality could not be ignored. HKS simply did not have the means to crash several zero-rs, and their dream of building Japan’s answer to Europe’s boutiques supercars was abruptly crushed.
That does not mean that the Japanese tuner had completely abandoned the project, different zero-rs were fully developed in the early 90s, albeit without homologation. Some of these cars stayed in the Shizuoka factory of HKS, while they made their way to the Sultan of Brunei’s shameful car collection.
Although most sources agree that only four ‘original’ zero-rs were made in the 1990s, some no less than 11 suggest. I was initially inclined to choose the side of the smaller figure, the lack of solid info and documentation on the zero-r to that a deeper dive discovered the following:
No, your eyes don’t cheat on you. These are film scans from 1993, which are shown eight Real zero-rs, still on GT-R-wheels, in storage at HKS. The images were made by the former HKS USA employee Scott Webb and posted on an American GT-R-Forum in 2013.
This figure is supported by an article from an Australian magazine in early 2000, High Performance Imports, With eight zero-rs set up outside, his tailor-made magnesium wore Tecnomagnesio wheels.
All initial zero-rs were finished in silver or at least eight of them were. The Zero-R of the Sultan, however, was white and part of the first run, which means that HKS produced at least nine cars before the turn of the century.
Around the mid-2000s, changes in the laws of Japanese driving gave HKs the opportunity to make the Zero-R Road legally. That did nothing to facilitate the confusion around the already produced cars, and no one knew for sure how much more would be built.
HKS announced the ‘Zero-R version II’, took the original concept and update it with modern turbos, brakes and suspension. Our own Dino Dalle Carbonare even came behind the wheel of one of these later models in 2010, just before more information about the original cars started to come up.
But even then there will be questions. The Dino article contained two cars-one, one silver but there is still no certainty about whether the white car was a completely new build or one of the original Zero-R-chassis updated with new parts.
Then there is the ‘Zero-R version III’ from 2007/2008. The only concrete photos show a black example, but then a red – which may have become purple – and more modified silver cars started to appear.
And let’s not forget the well-documented gray zero-r on Rays people racing re30 wheels that found their way to Australia, as well as the white car that Mark got the chance to drive, depicted around these words.
Only on the basis of photographic evidence do there seem to be nine zero-rs of the original Run-de Eight silver, plus the white car of the Sultan. With the addition of the depicted version II and version VIII models, we can look at 14 or 15 cars, although some believe that no fewer than 17 zero-rs could have been made.
But the truth is that, without concrete information from HKS or a production logbook, there is no way to verify the figures. In a sense, however, that contributes to the mystery of these world batpers with two seats that the visionaries at HK’s came up with almost four decades ago.
Although all eyes have been on HKS ‘Reborn’ R34 GT-R, apparently took over from the absurdly priced Nismo Z-Tune R34s and 400R R33s, you could think that the Zero-R has forgotten everything. However, the truth is told, the story is not yet completely over.
A plan to breathe new life into the car seems to be on the move, where HKs again built a zero-r this year and finally brought the BNR32 chassis to the elevated heights that he had in mind all those years ago. View this space – and don’t take a look.
Mario Christou
Instagram: MCWPN
mariochristou.world
Photography by Mark Riccioni
Instagram: Mark_Scenemedia
Twitter: Marriccioni
mark@speedhunters.com
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