I've spent a whole week flogging the S15 Nissan Silvia around virtual racetracks, and for the first time in the 3 years I've played pretend reviewer, I really can't seem to make up my mind on how I feel about a car.
On the surface of it, what's not to love about an S15? It looks good with its low, compact body, packs modest power with an iconic engine, barely tips the scales, comes relatively cheap, and is a mechanically simple 2 door FR sports coupé; quite possibly the last ever from Nissan, who can't seem to stop making big, heavy computers on wheels nowadays. With such an excellent base to build upon, the S15 was a prominent sight in many disciplines of motorsports, from D1GP, GT300, and even in Time Attacks today, giving it a strong aftermarket support for tuners. Hell, by sheer coincidence, SPD, Vic, and I brought S15s from three seperate racing games to our weekly meets, which just goes to show how culturally significant the S15 is. Really, it seems to tick all the boxes for a classic JDM sports car from the nineties, doesn't it?
My problem with the S15 is that it seemingly has all the finest ingredients to making a perfect sports car, but instead of carefully preparing said ingredients and cooking them, Nissan have seemingly just lumped all the raw ingredients into a chassis without a second thought and sold it as a complete product, which ticks me off because I see the vast possibilities of those now wasted ingredients.
The suspension setup of the S15, for example, is soft enough to sleep on. This of course means that the body of the S15 moves and wallows around a lot under hard driving, which, when coupled with a rather abysmal 56/44 F/R weight distribution, means that even minute steering inputs with full throttle or brakes will invite out the unladen rear end of the spec-R Aero to a bloody dance macabre. Maybe it's the Super HICAS rear steer system, manufacturer option on the manual spec-R models, that's messing with the car and causing it to be this tail happy, or maybe it's Gran Turismo doing a poor job of reproducing its behavior in the game. According to the game's settings sheet though, the S15 doesn't come with a 4WS system, nor can a 4WS controller be bought for it, so maybe the car is just set up that bad from the factory, I'm not entirely sure. Whatever the cause, the car is very much a "one thing at a time" car—no steering when you're braking, no brakes or throttle when you're turning, and when you're at the corner exit... well, good luck, have fun, and try not to die. Get it even slightly wrong, and the car simply falls sideways on the driver, as softly sprung cars don't much like ham fisted emergency corrective maneuvers. This car intrinsically challenges drivers to be smooth and measured with their inputs, and that holds doubly true in the torrential downpour if you're unlucky enough to be caught in one, even with a coupé model of the S15.
The heart of the spec-R on the other hand, a turbocharged version of Nissan's venerable SR20 2 litre Inline 4 engine, is a real treat! It's peak power and torque of 246HP (183kW) and 274.5N⋅m (202.5lbf⋅ft), both at 6,400rpm, may not sound like much, but there are two caveats to those modest figures—the first is that the spec-R Aero trim weighs in at a mere 1,240kg (2,734lbs), making those meek looking figures more than adequate for the car. The second caveat is that the turbocharged engine now has a very steady plateau of torque from what appears to me to be around 3,200rpm, allowing drivers to lug the car out of wet corners or simply to avoid time loss by shaving off a shift. I'm sure @Nismonath5 can give you a clearer, real life perspective of the torque of an SR20. But, while I'm on the topic of the engine, the turbocharged version of that malleable Inline 4 engine has its fuel cut set at 7,700rpm, which I opine you'll want to be near as often as possible on a track. The problem is that the tachometer turns into a fully red wall from 7,100 to 9,000rpm, making the human ear a much better indicator as to when to shift more than the tachometer of the car. Again, it feels like the car has all the greatest of raw ingredients to be something truly special, but they've just been mindlessly heaped together with no consideration for balance, cohesion, or how those parts will work together!
In practice, though, I find it incredibly hard to get mad at the S15 in spite of its rather moody tendencies. Well, okay, "moody" isn't the right word; the car feels completely at ease even when grip has been broken, giving its driver ample buildup and warning each and every time before it lets go. And when it does let go, it acts as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The steering remains light as ever. The car as a whole retains its... "flickability", for the lack of a better word. There's torque in the engine wherever to hold and adjust the slide, or you could ease off the throttle and let the car regain its grip. The car doesn't protest in the slightest either way. Instead of forcing drivers to drive it "correctly", it gives the driver all the ingredients and allows them to be naughty or nice with them.
Given enough time to internalise the S15's tendencies, the car becomes an intensely engaging drive, as I as the driver can never really relax in it or take anything for granted. Sharp and sudden tail happiness possibly due to unwelcome rear steering aside, there isn't much else on the S15 muddling up the driving experience, resulting in a very mechanical, pure, and intuitive drive; it's just a lightweight body propped up on four springs and four wheels. That is to say, it has two of the most important ingredients in the sports car recipe in abundance: lightness and simplicity. There's no race suspension to keep the body motion in check or to optimally distribute load. There are no overly grippy tyres that let go in an instant, nor are they staggered front to rear to help you keep the car out of the walls. It isn't even offered with the option of traction control, meaning the only electronic nanny zapping control away from the driver is the wholly appreciated ABS. Whatever happens from there on out, is your call as a driver, and your fault if you wrap it around a tree. It has an absolutely bewitching and seemingly impossible mix of threatening and ease of use. You almost go into a "zone" of sorts when you harmonise with the car. And that I think, is the mark of a driver's car.
But just how much of a driver's car is it? I thought some outside perspective might help, and so I brought along the Honda S2000 AP1 and a Mazda RX-8 Spirit R for comparison, the former because it's widely regarded as one of the best driving machines ever produced, and the latter because someone insulted my family on MY thread, and I have to... make excuses for why the RX-8 can't compete.
I mean, come on, the RX-8 has less power, more mass, more doors, and no turbo. Of course it's going to be slower. But the part that surprised me the most is where the RX-8 is slower than the S15: at long straightaways. The fact that it can more than hang with a pure sports car in the twisty bits I think is more than commendable for a 4 seater. The S2000 is also slightly slower than the S15 when both are bone stock... because the S2000 comes default with Comfort Soft tyres, in contrast to the S15's Sport Hards. Match compounds on both, and the S2000 will unabashedly whoop the S15 around any track you bring them to.
Bringing two comparison cars instead of just one to compare against the Car of the Week just helped me solidify my opinion that the S15 is way too soft and tail happy for a sports car. While the S15 is asking me every corner to baby and pamper it because it's so delicate, the other two cars instead are almost yelling at me every corner, every upshift, "LET'S F—ING GOOOOOO!" I as a driver feel that I have to actively hold the S15 back for fear of getting into trouble with it, whereas I'm in perfect aggressive harmony with the other two cars, and can thus push them harder, more of the time. That explains why cars with inferior numbers on the spec sheets can tango with the spec-R, not to mention making them much more fun than the S15, and I almost don't think that's a subjective statement. Both the comparison cars are also mechanically simple drives that will teach drivers how to handle a sports car at and beyond their limits, so the only niches I can find for the S15 are that it's a lot easier to break into a drift, and it's much cheaper than both the S2000 and RX-8 without GT7's stupid inflation. Hell, I took an S14 K's to a time trail after our weekly meets, and I think even that drives better than the top trim S15, even if it was slower.
The S15 Silvia feels like a basket of the finest, freshest ingredients imaginable, all just lumped together with the expectation that someone will wash them, peel them, chop them, cook them, or what have you. I don't know what goes on behind the scenes of a meal; I'm Singaporean. We're way too stressed out by our fast paced lives to learn any skill that doesn't promise prospective financial profits, including cooking. The kitchens in our newer homes are just spiteful formalities that would struggle to fit a dining table, let alone the appliances around it. We just want ready made products that work right out of their packaging, and if they don't work immediately, we get angry and whine about it in online reviews. To the angry, poor, and impatient Singaporean in me, the S15 is a shockingly bad car, akin to a restaurant serving me uncooked food. It doesn't have that instant gratification, disposable feel that the rest of my life revolves around. I needed to take time out of my fast paced life to really learn its ins and outs, what it likes and doesn't like, and then adjust my driving to really suit it. It's a very, very painful reminder that there ought to be more to life than what I currently have. The pretend racing driver side of me, who endlessly loves and praises cars of the S15's ilk, wants so badly for me to love and adore the S15. And I am so, so torn on it as a result.
In conclusion, I can see that the S15 is a very good car, one that I'm very glad exists. But do I like it? I don't know. I like it sometimes and I hate it sometimes. I hake it. It's a sleater. Let's just say I respect it, but I wouldn't go near it if I had comparable alternatives.
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