SSVI GT-R Exclusive | 5. A New Beginning

[Tekknikal]

Boca Raton, Fl

It was the day before the GT-R was scheduled to be dropped off with Tropical Shipping for her trip home. She had three quarters of a tank of gas, two more than Tropical's regulations permit. I had two options: siphon out the gas... or take a drive down to south beach...


Decisions, decisions. But I digress. I can’t proceed without fully closing out the Orlando chapter.

Service on the GT-R comes at 1,000 miles, and every twelve months thereafter. I stood by my car at its first service. The process involved checking the car's alignment, balancing the engine, and adjusting the transmission clutch engagements. The process took several hours because the car was so new, no one in the region had done it for real before - only in training.


^First, the GT-R was rolled onto the alignment rack




^Carbon rear diffuser, covering the exhaust and transmission




^Alignment in process. One of the requirements Nissan had of dealers that wanted to sell GT-Rs was that they purchased advanced equipment such as this Hunter DSP alignment machine.




^Visible are the exhaust and rear transaxle (which includes the differential and transmission). The fins are on the bottom of the rear of the differential side. The black plate in front of the finned section is the bottom of the gearbox section of the rear transaxle assembly. None of this is usually visible as a carbon fiber diffuser covers everything, helping to split airflow for cooling and aerodynamics purposes.






^The front of this car is at the top left of this pic. Visible here are the front wheels and forward section lower cover.


^After alignment, the car was rolled around to a different service bay. Although the car didn't need to be lifted, it was parked in the bay setup for GT-Rs.


^The engine balancing and transmission clutchpack realignment is actually done via computer. Not only that, but it's done wirelessly.


^Nissan supplies GT-R master techs with lockable briefcases. In it contains the keycards to access the GT-R computers. One of the card sets are used to connect to the primary GT-R computer. The second set is used to read the GT-R's data recorders.


^Once connected to the car, the process was fairly straight forward. It was simply a matter of telling the car to go ahead and check itself out. The car did the work automatically.



Thousand mile service complete, I was officially cleared to use all of the GT-Rs capabilities. The tech had signed off on the car's health, and I was good to go.

While I was in Orlando, I also hooked up with a detailer in the area to have the car fully detailed and sealed for its journey home. After 20+ hours of work over a couple days, he was done. I picked the car back up and we took it out for some pics...

















...It was a great trip I thought, as I started GT-R up for her trip to South Beach.

While there were still storms in the area and conditions were partly wet, by now I knew it didn't matter. It was a serene moment of understanding. In that instant I knew I'd miss my time in the states. For a moment I lived in the past, present, and future all at once. Time didn't exist as I headed down to Miami. In these moments, I was only a man with his machine, enjoying what little time remained between the current and the unknown.













...

Twelve days later..

I was home, half asleep as the warm breeze blew through the windows. With being home comes a relaxation that cannot be found elsewhere. It was the sort of peace you never find in the states. I had just finished the last of my smuggled supply of Haribo gummy bears. I had just moved my laptop aside to grab some sleep when the phone started to ring.

"Cuz...you're holding back on me..." Mickey started to say. As he spoke my mind started to catch up.

It was mid day Sunday. Word had just escaped from the TSA-secured port that a Skyline had just been unloaded. The question everyone had was, who's was it?

I laughed.

Not long later, the phone started to chirp again. This time it was a text message. The message was simple. I smiled as a small but discernible image of my car flickered across my Treo's screen. Apparently, about a hundred other mailboxes had received the same thing.



Wow. Word spreads fast.

The next day I went to pick her up, but despite having a book of copies of everything they could legally require- I wasn't able to rescue her from Custom's grip. They wanted another day to check her out. No biggie I thought, they have the right to do that.

Unfortunately, even though I believe in the law, it did nothing for my lack of sleep. So after another sleepless night of receiving text messages, I was back at the docks, at 9am the following morning. My GT-R sat, eerily alone inside the innermost fences...within the cage. But not for long. After a little paper pushing, we were reunited. She didn't fare well in the hands of the shippers, but less than a mile had been put on her. Besides, if something were to have happened, it would have been logged.


She was extremely dirty from being dropped off in the storm and having been outside for days. Although I was angry that the car couldn't have been in better hands, I was happy to free her from her captivity.



Apparently, many didn't think that a "Skyline" would ever really be on St Croix. Indeed for me, it was always difficult to imagine. The journey had been so long and so epic that at times I had to question reality myself.



But it was all real.

This story is the story of a journey. For three weeks I was absent from StreetSeen. I was on a mission. During those weeks, five chapters were added to my story in a single trip. This was a journey that took me to the opposite side of the world and back...



...and across countless people ranging from the casual enthusiast to the highest within Nissan itself...



...in search of a car of epic magnitude.



And finally, the Legend was Real.

There was a story to tell. I wasn't sure where to begin, or even if the story could be properly told...but I had to start somewhere. It was time to address the rumors...



And then I started to realize that this wasn't, in fact, the end. It was just the beginning...

[DomesticChiney]

Holy crap thats a good read! Makes me wanna do one! Nice read Tekk! Very nice!

[twincityfinest]

bad bad bad azz story! Thats wicked!!!!!! But come on tropical coulda really did a better job for real. It's a freakin gt-r! Overall my boy, congrats again for bringing history down to St. Croix!

[RedBull]

damn good write up. i saw it when it was at the port when you came there taking pictures. im looking forward to actually seeing it up close.

[freddie_vi]

redbull bring yours down let us check it out...!

[StreetRX7]

Tekk have created ah NEW REVOLUTION of import cars to STX/VI.... With STREETSEEN on the RISE its no holding him back... I'm also glad to be apart of STX/VI history in the making.. Like tekk said STX/VI STAND UP...

Great read... The funny thing is like Tekk said is just the beginning... I have many exclusive stuff for Streenseen to cover very soon...

[cruzan7m]

Meson all ayo mek me feel real proud to be a cruzan, i never thought that cruz would come back up again, but ayo doin it real big and i have to say BIG UP TO ALL AYO!!!!! STX massive to the end man. I know my visits home will be the sh!@#$t. TEKK keep it goin sh!@#t ALL ayo keep it goin. ( Never thought i would hear about or even see a super exotic on stx)

[Tekknikal]

thanks fellas, gotta represent