Ferntree Gully Nissan in Melbourne is set to become the first official Nissan NISMO Performance Centre outside of Japan, providing restoration services and parts for Nissan hero cars, including R32, R33 and R34 Skyline GT-Rs.

Those who are fans or owners of Nissan Skylines will likely be aware of the Nismo Omori Factory in Yokohama, Japan. Famed for undertaking factory-fresh restorations of R32, R33 and R34 Skylines and GT-Rs, with a swathe of rare and exclusive NISMO parts stocked and used as part of the process, the factory is considered Mecca for Nissan and GT-R lovers.

Now, that program is set to expand to Australia with the first of what is said to be several of these NISMO Performance Centres to be set up in the country. It’s the beginning of NISMO’s global expansion ambitions, which were announced in December last year.

Yutaka Sanada, President and CEO of Nissan Motorsports & Customizing Co. (NMC), was in Sydney on the eve of GT-R Festival to make the announcement.

“NISMO’s global expansion is about bringing the brand closer to customers in the right markets, with the right products, services and experiences,” he said.

“Australia is a natural priority because of its mature performance culture, strong GT‑R community and clear appetite for authentic NISMO heritage, performance parts, technical expertise and motorsport-driven experiences.”

The other reason Australia was seemingly chosen is because of the sheer volume of hero-model GT-Rs that have made it here over the years. Given that the R33 and R34 in particular were very limited-run vehicles in GT-R form – 16,674 for R33 GT-R and 11,578 for R34 GT-R – a huge proportion of those ended up in Australia, including a whopping 36 per cent of total R34 GT-R production, as explained by Scott Newman:

It is worth noting that the reason these numbers are estimates is due to the amount of cars that landed in Australia on the grey market, as opposed to being sold out of Nissan showrooms. Remember, Nissan only imported 100 R32 GT-Rs to sell domestically on the Aussie market when new, despite the much larger number that now reside here.

The Melbourne-based NISMO Performance Centre will be backed by the Yokohama Omori Factory, with “factory-certified NISMO Meisters backed by NISMO’s global expertise”, trained for undertaking the restorations on Aussie soil, according to Nissan’s press release on Friday.

The NISMO Performance Centre is set to open in the second half of this year, but full-scale vehicle restorations that’re being completed at the Japanese Omori Factory are expected to be some way off.

While the NISMO Performance Centre is focused on the restoration of what are now considered classic Skyline GT-Rs, the question others are posing is whether it opens the door for more current-model NISMO products to be sold in Australia. At the time of writing, only the Nissan NISMO Z is offered in our market, starting at $94,605 before on-roads, but now finally offered with a proper manual transmission.