Nissan 180SX Type X

The 180SX was the Silvia's fastback twin — same S13 platform, pop-up headlights, a liftback body that looked faster standing still. Japan loved it enough that Nissan kept building it for nearly a decade: the 180SX outlived the S13 Silvia, sold straight through the S14's entire production run, and only died when the S15 arrived. The 1996 kouki update produced the definitive version — Type X, with SR20DET power, full aero, and those iconic kouki taillights.

Street culture gave it a second identity. Crashed 180SX noses were cheaply replaced with Silvia front ends, and the resulting 'Sileighty' became so common at Ebisu and on the touge that Nissan blessed an official run through Kids Heart in 1998. Initial D immortalized it the same year with Impact Blue's Usui Pass Sileighty, welding the fastback into anime canon just as production wound down.

Type X is the one collectors chase: the shortest production window, the full factory aero, and the last, best-sorted S13-platform car ever built. Kouki cars became US-legal in 2021 and values immediately decoupled from ordinary 180SXs. Clean, original Type Xs with uncut metal are thin on the ground even in Japan, and the auction sheets show it — grade 4 cars now trade at prices that would have bought three of them in 2015.