When Nissan built a sister model to its popular Nissan Silvia line, the sister model known as the 180SX (a 3-door hatchback coupe type passenger car) was introduced in 1989. But an idea came up of what happened if you created a hybrid of the Nissan Silvia S13 type and the 180SX and the result was the Nissan SilEighty.
The creative idea came when supposedly a tuning car enthusiast damaged the front of his 180SX and because retractable headlights were expensive to repair, because the S13 type Silvia have the same model number and interchangeability of parts were high, and also because Silvia S13 parts were cheaper, the SilEighty was born.
So, a tuning shop in Nagoya, Kids Heart, where D1 driver Tezuka Tsuyoshi is based, released a limited number of 500 SilEighty vehicles to a Nissan dealer. Since Nissan treated it as a Nissan genuine product, it could be serviced at Nissan dealers nationwide.
The cars featured N1 lights, side steps, special logs and a Nismo LSD.
The manufacturer’s genuine SilEighty is the only vehicle approved by Nissan to use the trademark registration and for those who want one, the market price is about Y980,000 to 2.2 million yen. But some used car prices are at 700,000 to 1.9 million yen.
But why people want them is for one, it’s made by a professional tuner and only 500 were made. These upgrades are at a much higher standard than those who made their own.
the SilEighty featured a front side of the Silvia and the rear side would be the 180 SX. Thus the official name of the SilEighty was 180SX, the common name for the vehicle was SilEighty.
And the vehicle gained popularity thanks to Sato Mako driving it in the popular manga “Initial D”.
Even popular race car driver Tsukamoto Nanami (who is a big fan of “Initial D”) took a photo with the SilEighty:
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And now the SilEighty received the Tomica Premium treatment!
The car was released back in November 2020 and is no longer available, so finding one was a bit troublesome and if you are looking for one, you’re going to have to pay a little more than double.
Unfortunately, I didn’t own a Nissan 240 SX (I had the Nissan 200 SX back when I was in college) but people, were able to modify their 240 SX with Silvia front ends to create a “SilForty”.
But so happy to have found a Tomica Premium Edition, seeing that I can never own the real thing.
But the car is 1/62 scale and the details is great.
I love the gold rims, love the open door gimmick and I just love the fact that this car has the late ’80s/early ’90s style. And I love the blue color! You can see the real thing ala same blue color with silver rims here!
Overall, this is a very cool vehicle worth owning and definitely has a place in your Tomica or die-metal Japanese sports car collection!
