The C10 series of August 1968, which began its development under Prince at the company's Ogikubo R&D centre in the suburbs of Tokyo, was marketed with a Nissan badge. By the time the C10 went on sale, the Prince nameplate had been completely phased out on cars and trucks. The dealer network selling the cars became the Prince channel of Nissan, and the marketing group stayed at the Prince headquarters in Mita instead of moving to Nissan's headquarters in Ginza. The C10 Skyline was launched with Prince's 1.5 L OHC G15 I4 like the S57. A 1.8 L G18 version was also available. A station wagon variant, known previously as the Prince Skyway, was offered with this generation. A hardtop coupé was introduced in October 1970.

The brake- and tail-lights were modified to square units, but now included dual units for both the left and right side of the vehicle. As the Skyline was now a Nissan product, it was repositioned above the Bluebird as a more sport-oriented sedan and coupe, while the Bluebird remained more economical. Its appearance shows some resemblance to the earlier 1961 Fiat 2300, designed by Pininfarina.

In October 1968 the GC10 2000GT's engine power was decreased to 105 hp (78 kW), Nissan introduced an automatic variant in June 1970, as well as a 2-door coupe in October 1970.

To most car enthusiasts, this is a fairly unremarkable sedan in the fairly boxy style of the time. However, it is a progenitor of the highly sought GT-R series of cars that was/is produced by Nissan. The design of the kit fits a fairly standard mold for Japanese car kits. It is a curbside and has a spring mounted suspension. The front suspension has front wheels held in place by metal pins and it has operating steering. The wheels are not stock as shown on the box art and are a prepainted aluminum.

Interior has all the seats attached to the floor pan while the door panels are attached to the inside of the body. Dash and steering wheel are also attached to the body. There is a single clear piece for the windows. On the underside of the pan is a nicely detailed drive train along with fore and aft suspension bits and a well done exhaust system. The only chrome parts are the bumpers, door handles, external and internal mirrors. Any other chrome trim will need to be painted. I'd use a chrome paint pen. You'll also need to paint the red and orange tail light lenses.

Instructions are in Japanese, but the drawings are easy to understand and it seems they use Gunze paint numbers. The two markings options seem to be just the lower panel racing stripe and license plates.  

I am not sure how much appeal cars like this have outside of Japan. For sure the kit is well done and cleanly molded. It looks like a straight-forward build and Aoshima kits of the last 25-30 years are a huge improvement over when the company started. One thing for sure, few if any of your modeling friends will have built it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Skyline

August 2023

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