It would be a crime to close out ‘Japan Month’ on Speedhunters without discussing one of the country’s most legendary cars: the HKS Zero-R.
It’s a car steeped in mystery, with numerous blogs and forums dedicated to piecing together its true history and tracing its journey through the years. Price figures fluctuate wildly, as do 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 in on the action, using the brand-new BNR32 Nissan Skyline GT-R as a base. But here’s the crucial detail: this is not a Nissan Skyline GT-R.
The Zero-R was HKS’s attempt at creating their own supercar based on an already competent production chassis, much like Alpina, RUF, and Brabus were doing at the time with their creations. This wasn’t just a tuning package for the BNR32 – HKS made enough changes to the Skyline GT-R to warrant homologation for road legality. The issue, however, was the astronomical costs involved.
Homologation in Japan during the 1990s was horrendously difficult and expensive, and despite the technical expertise and passion behind the Zero-R project, the financial realities couldn’t be ignored. HKS simply didn’t have the resources to crash-test multiple Zero-Rs, and their dream of building Japan’s answer to Europe’s boutique supercars was abruptly crushed.
That’s not to say the Japanese tuner abandoned the project completely – several Zero-Rs were fully developed in the early ’90s, albeit without homologation. Some of these cars remained at HKS’s Shizuoka factory, while one made its way into the Sultan of Brunei’s outrageous car collection.
While most sources agree that only four ‘original’ Zero-Rs were made in the 1990s, some suggest as many as 11 were produced. I was initially inclined to side with the smaller figure – given the lack of solid info and documentation on the Zero-R – until a deeper dive uncovered the following:
No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. These are film scans from 1993, showing eight genuine Zero-Rs, still on GT-R wheels, in storage at HKS. The images were taken by former HKS USA employee Scott Webb and posted on an American GT-R forum in 2013.
This figure is backed up by an article from an early-2000s Australian magazine, High Performance Imports, which featured eight Zero-Rs lined up outside – each one wearing its bespoke magnesium TecnoMagnesio wheels.
All of the initial Zero-Rs were finished in silver – or at least, eight of them were. The Sultan’s Zero-R, however, was white, and being part of the initial run, that means HKS produced at least nine cars before the turn of the century.
Around the mid-2000s, changes in Japan’s roadworthiness laws gave HKS a chance to make the Zero-R road legal. That did nothing to ease the confusion around the cars already produced, however, and no one was sure how many more would be built.
HKS announced the ‘Zero-R Version II’, taking the original concept and updating it with modern turbos, brakes, and suspension. Our very own Dino Dalle Carbonare even got behind the wheel of one of these later models in 2010, just before more information about the original cars began to surface.
But even then, questions remain. Dino’s article featured two cars – one white, one silver – but there’s still no certainty on whether the white car was a completely new build or one of the original Zero-R chassis updated with new parts.
Then there’s the ‘Zero-R Version III’ from 2007/2008. The only concrete photos show a black example, but then a red one appeared – which may have turned purple – and more modified silver cars began popping up.
And let’s not forget the well-documented grey Zero-R on RAYS Volk Racing RE30 wheels that made its way to Australia, as well as the white car that Mark had the chance to drive, pictured around these words.
Based on photographic evidence alone, there appear to be nine Zero-Rs from the original run – the eight silver ones, plus the Sultan’s white car. With the addition of the Version II and Version VIII models pictured, we could be looking at 14 or 15 cars, though some believe as many as 17 Zero-Rs could have been made.
But the truth is, without concrete information from HKS or a production log, there’s no way to verify the numbers. In a way, though, that adds to the mystery of this two-seat world-beater that the visionaries at HKS dreamt up nearly four decades ago.
While all eyes have been on HKS’s ‘reborn’ R34 GT-R, seemingly taking over from the absurdly priced Nismo Z-Tune R34s and 400R R33s, you might think the Zero-R has all but been forgotten. Truth be told though, the story’s not quite over yet.
A plan to revive the car appears to be in motion, with HKS building a Zero-R from the ground up again this year, finally taking the BNR32 chassis to the lofty heights it envisioned all those years ago. Watch this space – and don’t look away for a second.
Mario Christou
Instagram: mcwpn
mariochristou.world
Photography by Mark Riccioni
Instagram: mark_scenemedia
Twitter: markriccioni
[email protected]
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