Is this Australia's best S13 Silvia?

We often joke about Nissan Silvia’s being junk, cheap, hacked up drift machines held together with cable ties, fibreglass bodykits and on their third set of panels.

Kirk Schmidt looks intent on breaking that chain with his stunning, elite 1989 Nissan Silvia S13, seen publicly for the first time yesterday at Meguiar’s MotorEx during the Shannons Unveils. It had its cover pulled off alongside machines from some of the best car builders in the country, and well and truly held its own.

“I have never seen an S Chassis modified like this, as they’re usually drift or stance oriented,” says Kirk. “The whole car is steel, there’s no fibreglass for any of the body, all the guards are hand shaped using coachworks techniques.”

The front now sits 75mm wider than standard, and the rear a whopping 150mm gain, and the arch heights also raised to allow the car to sit lower on the 17-inch wheels. The bodywork was modified by custom metal reshaping experts Rude Glory.

Originally a non turbo, automatic CA18-powered car, the process to take it from that to what you see now took around four years. “We bought it with a fresh paint job, we were just going to do a motor swap into it, but once I really started looking at it I saw a few paint runs here and there and I couldn’t unsee it, so it snowballed from there.”

Finishing off the widebody is a Nismo-style bodykit, with sideskirts which’re wider prototype models made from aluminium, and a front lip to match. Airbags help it sit low on a set of appropriately Japanese Panasport G7 wheels, measuring 17×9.5 front and 17×11 rear with GT-R brakes nicely filling the barrels.

The CA18 is also long gone, now replaced with an engine made famous in the Nissan Silvia, the 2.0-litre four cylinder SR20DET. “It has a pair of cams, and a G30-725 turbo with a Plazmaman plenum and a whole bunch more,” says Kirk.

The whole shebang is controlled by a Haltech ECU, and kirk reckons it’s a 400hp mill as it sits, but should be good for 600hp if the wick gets turned up.

“We stripped the engine bay back as best as we could to try and make it look like it was empty, but it’s obviously still a functional engine,” he continues. “Once we’ve done a few more shows, I’ll get it PPF wrapped and then we can start driving it.”

True Silvia nerds may have clocked that while it is a two tone green S13, the colour isn’t quite the hero colour Seafoam Green original to these cars. Kirk liked the original two tone of the car, but instead opted a Land Rover Grasmere Green on the top and Land Rover Corris Grey for the bottom shade.

Inside, a pair of Bride bucket seats take pride of place, with the whole interior retrimmed to a standard rarely seen on an S13. “I really wanted the tweed, so we had to find the leather that was going to match, and worked that into the interior,” says Kirk.