The Perfect Sileighty - Juiceboxforyou

I remember the first time I saw this beauty, it rolled into our first proper BBQ back in 2016 and I literally could not take my eyes off of the car, It had just been freshly imported from Japan and it literally stopped the show.

I had no idea this car existed until that very moment and I was perplexed at the fact this RPS13 had somehow avoided all the usual things that inevitably happen to a 180sx, most of them have either been crashed, drifted or irreversibly tampered with in one way or another.

Ok ok, so this has been tampered with, but not in the usual way these things are modified. Most of you will already know that the front end from a PS13 has been fitted and was quite a common modification back in the day.

The front wings, bumper, bonnet and headlights are all swapped out for the S13 variant, what’s even cooler is the fact that all the lines add up as you can see from the pic above. Oddly enough Nissan created the hatchback and Coupe version of the S-chassis and a lot of the parts are interchangeable, the doors are identical. The 240sx in America came with the pop-up front end from the Hatchback and the brick headlight front end was only available in Japan.

The front end looks like its supposed to be there. It makes you wonder why Nissan didn’t bother building this car as Toyota did with the Levin coupe/hatchback variations. This side angle shows just how beautiful the Sileighty, arguably this should have come from the factory as an option, it looks perfectly proportional. Luckily Kids heart created 400 “official” Sileightys back in 1998. Nissan caught on to what Kids Heart was doing and worked out a deal. They sent the cars to Kids heart, which was a Local tuning shop in Nagoya and these 400 cars were sold in their store and local Nissan dealerships.

All of these proper Sileigties wore the Sileighty logo on the glass, Kouki skirts, rear spats and centre garnish, rear lights and Kouki spoiler, all essentially from the facelift 180sx type X.

Upfront, the Sileighty had the PS13 aero front bumper and a GTR grill. This car is rocking a fibreglass version of the OEM aero bumper with a slightly more aggressive front lip. It all looks like its supposed to be there. You would be hard pushed to believe otherwise if you knew nothing about this chassis.

I’ve never actually come across such an original take on the Sileighty. Most are usually drift cars or have some sort of heavy modifications done to them. This example is very lightly modified and even has the original unrolled arches.

An HKS exhaust and a few very tastefully chosen mods compliment the cars original look.

The Sileighty screams 90’s when you zoom in on the details. The “Add Zest” parcel shelf speakers ooze cool and remind us of a time where people cared heavily about aftermarket audio in their car.

The Advan SA3R’s are another 90s favourite, from a time when people were obsessed with circuit racing and many of the wheels of that era came with a fake centre lock look. These three spokes are the quintessential 90s wheel and compliment this car perfectly.

Here is the Sileighty badge, this one appears to be a sticker but im pretty sure all the quarter glass on these had this sticker, I’m not aware of a proper printed Sileighty glass that’s actually in existence as these would have been incredibly costly to make, but I could be wrong…

The inside is very tame for an S Chassis, it has what appears to be an OEM s14 steering wheels and a few choice modifications, chequered mats and a couple of gauges.

The mats are about as Japanese as it gets.

Under the hood lies a trusty original blacktop SR20DET. There is zero rust under the bay, I could not comprehend how original and clean this thing looked, not a spec of grime anywhere.

This little chequered covered engine dampener was a classic piece of strange Japanese styling but I quite like it there. Nothing else sticks out asides from a Blitz front mount, an expansion bottle and a Cusco strut brace.

We shot these photos last summer, back when we experienced the best summer in over twenty years, we made sure to make the most of this rare immaculate evening and sat around shooting for well over an hour. The gold was rushing through the trees, our backdrop was strange, a priest college in the middle of nowhere and all we could focus on was this little slice of 90s Japanese beauty.

A lot of the time, less is truly more.

We stood around for another bit, admiring the clean lines and simple look this thing has, it’s by far the coolest Sileighty we had seen in a long time and an absolutely classic example a time when Japan was at the top of their game. No doubt the S – Chassis will go down as one of the most iconic cars to ever come out of Japan, hopefully, this thing sticks around for a long time as its a great time capsule from an incredible era for cars.

Engine:

2.0 SR20DET Blacktop
Blitz 3” Catback system
Blitz air filter
Blitz front mount intercooler

Suspension & Handling:

Cusco Coilover’s
Cusco front strut brace
Cusco rear tower brace
Rear C-Pillar Brace

Exterior:

Titan Autoworks Grade 4 Import in June 2016
Kid’s Heart SilEighty
Full Kouki Type X Kit
GTR Grill
Aero style front bumper

Interior

Aftermarket front bumper
Evo 5 Recaro Recliners
Nismo short shifter
Boost oil and water temp gauges

Wheels

17” Super Advan Racing Sa3r’s Gen 1’s