Bumping an old thread to tell my own story :o Funnily enough, I never played the early Gran Turismo games but I did get into Initial D around 1999 or 2000 and saw the black R32 GTR (Nakazato's) early on that first introduced me to Skylines. Didn't think too much of it at the time but Initial D did spark an automotive obsession in me. I first saw a KH2 R32 GTR back in 2001 at a DSM Shootout meet of all places but again didn't think much of it due to the cost Motorex was charging to import and Federalize them (that car was the first and only Motorex R32 in Texas at the time.) At the time I had a brand new Eclipse GT V6 and thought it was the s***. Come to find out, it was just plain ol' s*** and after wasting $9k ricing it out with neon, a body kit, custom stereo setup, etc., I traded it in 14 months later at a huge loss. BUT... I traded it in for one of my dream cars at the time, a 2000 Integra Type R.
Eclipse ownership had cured me of rice-itis and the ITR only saw a cold-air intake, header-back exhaust, good pads and sticky tires for mods. I took her AutoX'ing on the regular and my only regret is that I never went road racing in it
Had her for a little over 2 years before the cascade of bad financial (and minor criminal) decisions I'd made had caught up to me and I had to sell the ITR to pay off the last of some major debt. Drove junk that need not be mentioned here for a few years, then had a Miata that I also AutoX'ed, a Lexus IS300 'cause I thought I was an upscale goober, a Triumph motorcycle that I was
always fixing, and finally just sold it all. I'd managed another setback due to kidney disease leading to dialysis and was too sick to maintain my auto hobby.
Fast forward to 2009 and I missed having a fun vehicle so much that about a year before my transplant, I ran across a cheap (relatively) 2005 Lotus Elise track edition that some podunk dealership in a podunk small town was trying to get rid of. God, I loved that Elise like I used to love weed and cocaine. To this day, I regret trading her in but it had to be done as I rarely drove it and my daily got totaled in a hail storm in '11. Bought a brand new 2011 VW GTI and loved that car like I used to love cocaine and finding out that good weed got great. After over three years of ownership, I decided I wanted something new and after searching through BMW classifieds, decided those cars were too much work and money to get track prepped. And then I started hearing about R32s finally being legal. Long story a little less long, I started researching GTRs and the RB26DETT heavily, sold the GTI (boo ;_: ) bought a beater Ford Escape (double boo ;_;) and bought, a KH2 R32 GTR from Dave Warrener of the The GTR Shop. The irony didn't escape me that thirteen years after that very first Skyline I ever saw had failed to impress me, I bought one just like it. Mine gets here in a little under 2 months in March