Nissan Silvia

The best-remembered generations are the S13 (1988), the S14 (1993), and the S15 (1999, the last and most sought-after, never officially sold outside Japan). Lightweight coupe, rear-wheel drive, turbocharged four-cylinder SR20DET engine, the technical recipe was simple, but it fit perfectly with what a generation of Japanese street drivers needed to slide the car through mountain corners.

It was precisely that "touge" (mountain pass) racing scene that gave birth to drifting as we know it, formalized as a competitive sport in the D1 Grand Prix starting in 2000. Drivers like Keiichi Tsuchiya, the "Drift King", helped popularize the technique in Option video magazine series in the 1990s, much of it filmed behind the wheel of a Silvia.

After the S15, Nissan never launched a direct successor, the 350Z/370Z line took the Silvia's place as the brand's sporty coupe, officially retiring the name. That, combined with the growing rarity of original examples, is part of why the Silvia has become such a desirable car among collectors today.

• The S15, the final generation, was never officially sold outside Japan, much of its international fame came from games and videos, not the real market.
• The SR20DET engine remains one of the most popular in Japanese tuning to this day, decades after production ended.
• Widebody kits like Liberty Walk (LB Works) are extremely popular on Silvia miniatures, a way to keep the car visually relevant long after production ended.
• After the Silvia, Nissan never launched another compact rear-wheel-drive sport coupe with the same positioning.