Your first exposure to GTiR's

fubar andy

Moderator & N/W Rep
Staff member
I found a bunch of old photo's on some CD's last night and as I was flicking through them and this car came up.

DSCF0022.JPG
Does anyone know this car? (HiTeq number plate)

I met the owner in 2004 at a BMW track day at Croft circuit. I didn't know anything about GTiR's at this point, never even hear of them...clueless!

However this was my first ever introduction to them and since then it always stuck in the back of my mind.

It was overtaking almost everything on the track (until the gearbox gave up iirc)

This was the moment I thought....hmm I'd like to drive/own a GTiR one day.


I'd thought I'd post up to see if:

A) Does anyone know the car?
B) Do you remember when you had your first encounter with a GTiR?
 

warpspeed

Well-Known Member
I drove an n13 1.8 sunny zx when I was 17 and decided then that I wanted one, got a 3dr 1.8 zx when I was 23 and have owned at least one sunny ever since going to n14 gti next and the onto gtir's, I've now got 4 gtir's.
 

keastygtir

Well-Known Member
I seen an R in a car mag one day. The guy had given like 16k for a fresh import and said to my mate I need one of those, perfect example of function over form and so aggressive. Many years later I just broke my S13 and mine came up at a good price with a transmission thump, so i took a chance and won it on ebay. I was luck the thump turned out to be the worst wheel bearing I have ever heard.
 

Wes

Member
My first experience was in this one back in 1994. I think it was one of the first imports into the country. The guy that owned it had quite a lot of engine work done and I remember thinking I would have one, one day and here I am 22 years later.

Marcs pulsar.jpg
 

Richard_Sideways

Active Member
About 1997, a mate of mine who was in the insurance trade ran the numbers and worked out that the 'R was the most power you could get for least money at the time so set his heart on one. Many a late night session on Gran Turismo (the first one) confirmed this was a motor to own... But could he find one? No. So the months went by, leads went nowhere (he once called me and said "Rich, can you give me a lift to Glasgow? Theres an R there I want to go see!" bare in mind I was driving a 45hp Fiat Panda at the time, a round trip to Scotland did not appeal). Anyway, turned out a guy running an import business had one less than 10 miles away so off we went, and there she was... but not alone. He had 4 there - 2 black 1 red and 1 hot pink!. My mate practically bought it without a test drive. Now, I'd been wanting to get shot of the Fiat for a while and had my eye on a Clio Williams, but there was this red one sat there, same kind of money I was looking at parting with for a Clio, but a whole helluva lot more car. Umm'd and Ahh'd for a few days, but gritted teeth, scraped the cash together and wouldn't you know it, 18 years later, she's still with me.
 
Screenshot_2016-08-17-12-58-30-1.png First experienced the R after my cousin bought one in the early 2000s (above) when I was about 16. Car had light mods - HKS induction kit and dump valve, AVCR boost controller set at 1 bar, sweet sounding Mongoose exhaust system, Tein coilovers and some lovely magnesium alloy wheels with electric blue polished rims imported from Germany - but it was a true steet racer. Took on scoobys all day and ate M3s for breakfast. Sort of grew up around jap sports cars, GTOs, 300ZXs, RX7s, Skylines, etc but when I finally was able to afford one for myself, the R is the only one that made sense. Simply put, it gives the most bang for your buck and I they're pretty damn rare (in my area at least). Other than my cousin's one and at jap meets, I've only EVER seen 2 other Rs on the street.
 
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vpulsar

Well-Known Member
I can't remember what year it was but i was out looking for an R33 gts-t but noticed this little strange looking black thing unloved at the back of the showroom, it was love at first sight I'm afraid, to be honest that first Gtir was a bit of a bastard having a close ratio box. I loved the handling because it had a front LSD which at the time i hadn't realised was unusual, i couldn't work out why my second Gtir handled so badley in comparison. Anyway that first car ended up in a ball of flames as i was racing a bike down the A33 to reading lol. It put a piston through the block at over 120mph and went up in flames.

I'm now on my 3rd Gtir, well i will be once its finished.
 

lakeview

Active Member
My first experience was getting taken out in one buy a guy from Nissan when they first came over
Told my mates mother that I wanted an escort cosworth but didn't have the money so was saving for a sapphire cosworth
Roads where this guy never knew he was so much quicker than a farmers son who knew the roads and had an escort cosworth
Never bought or wanted on till driving home one night whilst driving my 1.6 Mazda 323 turbo I chased an escort cosworth easily keeping up with it around the bends a gtir flew past the pair of us and never seen him again
Decided after that I wanted a gtir
 

PobodY

Moderators
Staff member
My family had owned a couple of lower spec'd domestic Pulsars in Australia, but a friend of mine who's Datsun mad had a GTiR imported in the early 2000s. - I never really saw much of it, and at the time I was in to Skylines (and owned a R33 GTS-T 4-door).
When we moved to the UK, the boss lady said that a Skyline was too big for British roads... so I said "we could get a Pulsar".
 

Fire & skill

Vintage member
My Story - sorry for the long windedness!

Well, I have to admit in my younger years I was a bit of a knob on the roads, used to go out at nights just to hunt down and race other cars. I had a series 2 RS turbo (had a series 1 before that) and I wasn't doing too bad at my job, was earning enough money to pay digs at the parents and had cash left over to order bits and pieces for the car from the pages of MAX Power and Fast Car magazine (pre internet). Effectively over a period of time I had built myself quite a capable car, uprated cam, Collins chip, SPAX adjustables, peco exhaust etc. and in hindsight not the way you would do things now. SO . . . I have this RS turbo (which I loved and still love seeing them) which was decent enough for the time, went well enough in the dry but horrendous in the wet and struggled to get up steep hills due to wheelspinning. King of the road I was, could see off nearly everything for the time such as XR2's, GTE's, novas, Chavalibras, Chavaliers, even being able to chase a saph cossie round the bends.

Coming out my street one evening and on the way to meet up with friends (remember I was a knob of a driver), catches up with this weird looking thing in grey, had a well fitted bodykit but obviously it was a 1.3 or something. We pull up to a T junction, and I kind of had this manoeuvre down to a tee, the road was quiet and usually I would go out straight behind the first car when they had left the junction on to the main road, at this point I would immediately floor it and would be past before the brow of the hill. So he leaves the junction, I then as aforementioned proceed to follow and I'm straight down with the loud pedal, pull out and then . . . . this 1.3 brick thing with the bodykit is off and when I say off I mean off, had NEVER seen anything go like this ever. I'm still flooring it and this thing is rapidly becoming a small dot in the distance and he's already at the roundabout a good 600 yards away!!! I felt like I had been man raped, I was so ashamed :(
Took me a while to get my head round the fact that there could be something on the road legally that could do THAT! I ended up going to a mates house and told him half a story - I left the bit out about being totally caned because at the time my mates thought I had the quickest car ever.

I explained what it looked like and we both had no idea so went through the back ages of Max power where they sell cars, didn't find anything at all that resembled it. So looked at a few back issues (we had a good 2 feet high worth) until I found a Sunny GTI . . . but nah, couldn't have been that. It looked very close though and about ten minutes later came across a GTI-R in Black and I'm like THATS IT!! THATS IT!! So I decided me and the RST had to part company, took me a few months to find out that I could import one, this was all kind of new at the time. So I got a bit of money together and about a year later went in to see an import company which had just started out about 5 minutes from my work, told them what I wanted and we went straight on to the auction site, there were a few but we waited it out for a few days and I picked it from a selection of pictures, the 6 weeks were the longest ever but boy was I so glad to see it when it arrived , I was actually shaking!! took it for a blast and got out the car, I was buzzing, starry eyed and a grin from east to west!!!

Had a few since then, just can't get away from them - love them.
 
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Ricky_GTi-R

Member
Hmmm my first experience of a GTi-R, must have been 2002 (or there abouts), I was 17 and had just passed my test, got myself a lovely little Nova 1.4SR, and boom, I felt like the daddy lol. A mate of mine's cousin had a mate who owned a Renault 21 Turbo which was tuned to the moon (think it was circa 400hp), anyway he took us out is this red rocket ship of a 21 one night and I was instantly in love, started thinking if I punted the Nova I could get a 21....... Anyway a few months passed, I had subsequently broke the Nova (had a fat chick in the boot and thought it would be a good idea to go over speed bumps as fast as possible, this led to the shocks coming thru the chassis as it was a tad rotten), I got some money together and bought a Ford Ka ( the shame still lives with me), so one night down Kirkcaldy prom the guy who had owned the 21 ( Bundy, was once a member on here) was driving something new, some grey box thing, anyway we went over and spoke to him and he offered to take us out in it, MY GOD!!!!! What an absolute beast, I thought nothing was as quick as his 21, but this thing felt worlds apart, so that was it, the seed was planted, one day I was going to get myself an GTi-R..... A couple of years passed and I chopped a few cars (CRX VTEC, GT4, Almera GTi....), then this black GTi-R came up, went and had a shot, bought it there and then. Anyway have had 3 since and currently back looking for number 4. Once you have an R, I don't think that bug ever leaves.
 

vpulsar

Well-Known Member
Do you think he should be banned? What a shameful statement to make, I actually had a little vomit come up in my mouth when I read that, almost like spontaneous heartburn. Oh the shame Ricky!! :(
A ban would be a suitable punishment i feel, after all how do you ever recover from the shame of owning a ka let alone a Ford.

He's bought the gtiroc into disrepute!


Rob
 

Aimee

Moderators
Staff member
I was on my usual errands run at air cadets (yes I was in the ATC), myself and my mate both saw this absolutely gorgeous glossy black R fly past us, I just remember standing there with my mouth open and saying oh my god I want one of them, I was only 14 and it was love at first sight.
3 years later and I ended up moving up north, I went to a 'cruise' in Bolton and saw a black R which reminded me of the gorgeous one I had seen many years before. I asked the bloke what turbo did he have...nearly 13 years on we're still together and he's got his 2nd R and I still love that darn car even if it is sat on our driveway. Thank god for that R :)
 

Aimee

Moderators
Staff member
We've still got it Jim, it doesn't look like it's going anywhere any time soon. Hope you're all well
 

Caz

Member
What a great thread! Why didn't we have something like this on here 15 years ago! My first experience was 1999, I saw two cars, first a grey one, then a black one, both customer cars from a local garage called Fuji Motorsport. We had our Sierra and fiesta on show at a local ford show and the grey one was at the bottom of the field. I was blown away. I wasn't financially ready at 19, so bought a white 1.6sr and made a replica until I was 21 and I got my black GtiR. Back then the Phoniex Power car had just landed at the auto salon, (in the last 2 weeks I managed to obtain the magazine from Japan). The cars had a massive turnout at Trax. Paul and Tracy hardcastles red one, Caleb, Adrian cash grey forge car, all the big names back then.
 

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lakeview

Active Member
I forgot all about Fuji motorsport
They had the potential to be big local place
So did that place not far from Steve fergussons place forgotten there name now something imports or something like that
 
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