In the latter half of it's life, the S12 chassis continued on from the S110's legacy of rally racing. The last Silvia chassis to compete in an International Rally stage, the S12 fared well as part of FIA's Group A, class 8 .The S12 competed from 1987 through to 1991 with its best placing years being 1988 and 1989.
1988 was the most successful year of the two, where the S12 placed 1st at the 1988 20th Marlboro Cote d'Ivoire Rallye with Alain Ambrosino/Danielle Saux. At the 1988 36th Marlboro Safari Rally, the S12 placed both 2nd and 3rd with Mike Kirkland/Robin Nixon and Per Eklund/Dave Whittock respectively. In 1989 at the 37th Marlboro Safari Rally, the S12 placed 2nd with Mike Kirkland/Robin Nixon at the helm.
Interestibgly, the S12 rally racer was that unlike most of its competition that ran 4-cylinder turbocharged engines. It was powered by Nissan's VG30E - a naturally aspirated 3.0L V6. Due to the WRC homologation requirement, it was mandatory that at least 5000 units were produced and sold to the general market. It was in the United States that Nissan found their market to meet the homologation standard. The American culture both enjoy and embraced the larger displacement engines and torque in the 80s as they had before and since. Thus, in 1987, Nissan introduced the S12 as the 200SX SE that housed the VG30E. It was very much a success as Nissan was able to sell more than the required minimum. In addition to the engine, the SE was able to share much in common with the Z31 300zx of the time, including larger brakes and a stronger transmission and differential.

In 1987 and 1988, when the main WRC category had become Group A, Nissan entered with the 200SX and came 2nd overall on the 1988 WRC Safari Rally. On the Ivory Coast Rally of the same year they even took the overall win. This was the last time in the history of the WRC that an FR car won and after that the period of high-powered 4WD machines came into being.

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Nissan Factory Cars

Nissan factory team car #18 is owned by Nissan and is part of their Heritage Collection, stored at the Zama Heritage Car Garage in Japan. This car was driven by Mike Kirkland in the 36th Safari Rally of 1988; it came 2nd overall and also won the A4 class (over 2,000cc, 2WD). That year's Safari Rally was very hazardous due to heavy rain preceding the event and only 14 cars completed the course.

Complete results for Nissan S12 200SX Rally Cars competing in the World Rally Championship.

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

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