LAB-BUILT VK56 GLORIA

There’s no cool like the old school, and, while many of us are still caught up in the late-’80s and early ’90s hype, there are a few out there keeping the much older girls alive. The Lab Limited’s Glenn Hodges, the name behind the mental V6 twin turbo–powered Nissan March, has been tasked with restoring this 1969 Nissan Gloria HA30.

Originally fitted with an L24 engine and column-shift trans — for the bench seat, of course — at some point in its life, the Gloria was repowered with an L28 and changed to suit five-speed floor shift.

With Glenn’s influence and the owner’s eagerness to pull a few more ponies out of the old girl, gone is the lowly L-series in favour of a Nissan VK56DE V8. As if twice the number of cylinders wasn’t already enough of an upgrade, it now has a Stillen Titan supercharger kit bolted on top that makes use of a water-to-air intercooler built into the intake manifold. The party will be controlled by a Link G4+ Xtreme ECU.

Backed by a G35 Skyline six-speed manual, which required a custom tunnel to fit the beefy box and two-piece driveshaft, the rear end will be converted to a Ford nine-inch with a limited-slip diff (LSD), retaining the four-link rear end that had previously been fitted.

Glenn has been tasked with a serious amount of fabrication, creating new straight front rails to allow for the VK to fit in the bay, while the front suspension has seen S13 Silvia geometry retrofitted to custom towers. There will also be an Aeromotive A1000 fuel system. The exhaust consists of custom steel headers that came with the engine package and a twin 2.5-inch stainless-steel system made in-house at the Lab.

The finished product will be a humble cruiser with plenty of usable power on tap when the situation permits.