The Dawn of Modern Drift: S13 Silvia

Silvia: The Epitome of the Pure FR Sports Coupe

Now back when I was working at the Kanto Autoworks East Fuji Plant here in Japan, there were a number of guys (and a couple of girls, too) who I would describe as “real characters.” Unique types, if you know what I mean. There was the guy who started with the company as an entry level production engineer, saved every penny (or, rather, every yen) that he could, got a couple of promotions and bought himself a Ferrari. (I wrote about him a bit here on our Japan Car Direct Blog.)

There was the guy who, just after joining the company back in the early 1980s bought, as his first car, the wonderful (and now rather expensive, if you can find yourself a good one) Toyota Sprinter Trueno, AE86, the famous “Hachi Roku”

He never bought another car until he got his long service bonus from the company (which is now Toyota Motors East Japan) and then bought himself a brand new Lotus Elise.

This is the Elise that comes up in our JCD Blog post Car Café Day. Part 1 here. (You’ll find Part 2 here and Part 3 here. That was a great day, I’ve got to say!) Good thing he bought that Lotus, since he later plowed his Hachi-Roku into the guard rail driving back home to Yokohama just after he retired. Repaired it though, he did, and still drives it…and the Elise, too. He’ll never give up either of those two cars. No way. 

Buddy Talks Silvia

And there was another guy in the company who has owned more sports and performance cars than anybody I have ever met. Not super expensive things like Ferraris, but moderate priced machines like a Toyota Sprinter AE111 and AE101, a Supra 70, a Toyota Soarer, things like that. He’s another unique fellow, that’s for sure. My nickname for him was “Mr Many Cars.” He lives very modestly and puts all his money into buying, driving, and then selling on the cars that take his fancy. I’ve had many enjoyable conversations shooting the car breeze with him, and I remember his take on the S-13 Silvia (he didn’t stick with just Toyota cars). We were talking about FR sports machines and I asked him:

“What about the Silvia? Have you had one? Are they any good?”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve had one.” (No surprise there; I’ve often wondered what performance car he hasn’t had.) “They’re a good piece of kit.”

“Well, tell me then; good points, bad points.”

“Good points, bad points?….well…It’s a basic, fairly simple FR sports coupe. It’s fun. Drives hard, though…I mean the driving feel….suspension and that. It’s hard and you know you are in a sports car. It’s not a grand tourer or anything like that. And the back seat is too tight for it to be real touring car. Those seats are kind of just for occasional use.”

“What about performance?”

“Well, mine was a turbo, so no problem there.”

“Handling?”

“Basically good. The car is light, say about 1,200 kilos. But I would say that the downside of that is that the chassis is not that strong, not ideally as rigid as I’d like, but there are chassis rigidity parts available that solve the issue. In fact, it’s a really good tuner’s car. If you want to, kind of, “make your own car,” make a sports car that’s tuned up and modded just for your own most liked style of driving, I’d say a Silvia is one of the most rewarding. Yeah, for horsing around and enjoying FR, it’s good.”

“Any downsides?”

“Actually, maintenance was a bit on the high side, I thought. I mean, for what I paid for it, I spent a bit more on fixing bits and bobs than what I would have expected with an equivalent Toyota.”

We had a good laugh at this since we were both working at Toyota at the time, and our pride in Toyota reliability was honest and true.

I’m just recalling now, but this is basically how our conversation went and how he described his S13 Silvia.

Now Mr Many Cars didn’t say it, but I would add that those S13 Silvias, even though they are not new cars these days (time of writing: summer, 2024), don’t look at all out of date. They are one of those fortunate designs that always look, at least to my eyes, as always “current.” And the interiors have aged well, too.

Used Nissan Silvias from Japan

And when it comes to power tuning, especially for drifting, S13 Silvias (also S14 and S15) are very potent machines. Used drift cars exported from Japan has always been a good chunk of our business here at Japan car direct and you’ll find some of our Japanese Drift Cars pages here, here, and here on our web site.

As I said, we have exported a goodly number of fine, clean used Silvias from Japan (only 54,250 miles on the one we are looking at here), especially to sports car and drift car fans in our main export markets of the USA, Australia, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, the UAE, and Ireland. (If you want to learn the import regulations and rules for these destinations, just click on the country name. And if your import destination is not among our main markets, don’t despair, just look here on our Japan Car Direct main website.)

Regarding the state of aftermarket tuning of the secondhand Silvias that we are shipping from Japan, there is a lot of variety here. This one here, is a fairly tuned unit, as you can see when we lift the bonnet.

But we also source good used Silvias from the Japanese used car auctions and from the specialist dealers that we partner with that are stock or near stock.

Here’s a couple of beautiful Silvias that we have exported just this year. The gold racing wheels nicely set off the light blue metallic body color of this S14.

And while this solid blue S-15 Silvia looks fairly stock, let’s not assume anything until we look under the hood.

And here’s the blood brother of the Silvia, the S13 180SX. (I, myself, am partial to these cars, and they had a good long, ten year production run from 1988 to 1998.)

These machines are just a few examples of recent Nissan Silvias (and 180SXs) that we have exported direct from Japan. If fact, you can see many of the good used cars that we have sent overseas in just the past six years by clicking the dates here: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019. Lovely cars and trucks! Enjoy!

So if you’re saying that you want to import a good used Silvia direct from Japan, be it an S13, an S14, an S15, or the very similar and slightly futuristic sci-fi looking 180SX, then just register here and we’ll work together with you to find you a good example of this delightful FR sports coupe, the Nissan Silvia, a car that never looks dated, is uber tunable, and eats up the drift track. A car that even Mr Many Cars at Toyota (and me, too) thinks is a good piece of kit.