They paid over half a million dollars for Paul Walker's Nissan Skyline GT-R R34, one of the few legal in the United States.

The  Nissan Skyline GT-R  is one of the few Japanese cars to achieve infarction counts at auction, clearing the  Toyota GT2000  and  Lexus LFA , provided a series of conditions are met. For example, someone paid over half a million dollars for this  Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec II .

Of course, in addition to being one of only 1,855 R34 V-Spec IIs ever made, which is remarkable in itself, it is one of only 14 Skyline GT-R R34s legal on US soil. But above all it was the late  Paul Walker . A whole series of conditioning factors that make it unique and that explain the figure reached by the car.

Auctioned by  Mecum  in Monterey during 'Car Week' in mid-August, this car has changed owners constantly since 2014, although this time the price they paid was lower than what they paid by previous owners. In 2014 it was sold at auction for 750,000 euros and in 2016 it was sold for one million euros. Now it  has changed hands for $580,000, not bad.

If this R34 looks familiar with its gold and black vinyls and its iconic  Volk TE37 rims  in matte bronze finish, that's because it's been seen so many times. The auction house recalls that it was used as a demonstration car to promote various episodes of the "Fast & Furious" saga.

And, as a fan of the Skyline GT-R, this car was in the care of the late Paul Walker for a long time. It is said to have racked up around 18,000 miles on its wheel, or almost 29,000 km. Come on, he didn't hide it in a garage.

Another striking fact that makes it desirable for any Skyline GT-R fan in the United States is that it is one of only 14 legally registered Skyline GT-R R34s there. And is the  Skyline GT-R R34 illegal in the United States .

Federal law prohibits the registration of any car that is not certified there, unless the model is more than 25 years old since the last unit left the factory. In this case, they consider it classic and you can import and save whatever you want. In the case of the GT-R R34, it won't start importing them until 2026.

Nothing strange so far, even in Europe you have to homologate an imported car that is not a classic. The problem is that homologating a car that was not developed for the American market is more complex than bringing it to Europe, as it sometimes involves modifications to the structure of the car.

The Motorex scandal and the Skyline GT-R R34

In the early 2000s, taking advantage of the rise of 'Gran Turismo' and 'Fast & Furious', a businessman devoted himself to importing Skyline GT-Rs through his company  Motorex  (nothing to do with the Swiss lubricants) and he undertakes for cars to be legal in the United States.

To do this, he bought the car in Japan, imported it, took care of all the paperwork and, with the help of an engineer, modified the cars to meet federal standards.

This involved mounting various catalysts and lowering the crash bars inside the doors, for example. And that with every car. A costly operation where they exist.

The problem is that Motorex imported the cars and billed the customers, but the deliveries took forever. A series of minor events then surrounded Motorex. Between the luxurious lifestyle of the owner of Motorex, the cars which were not delivered because it was very expensive to homologate them and which they accumulated, the bad reputation and the controversy soon surrounded Motorex.

But the straw that broke the camel's back was Motorex's complaint about the theft of several cars which, oddly enough, as  Motor Trend recalls , had been left parked on the street overnight. There, authorities began investigating the company.

They discovered several cars without papers, there were physical assaults and several lawsuits that ended in the dismantling of Motorex and several prison sentences for those involved.

And because the cars didn't actually have the modifications charged to the customer and required by federal law, authorities seized almost all of the Skylines. Authorities pardoned 14 cars, provided their owners promised to homologate the cars properly. One of them is this Skyline GT-R.

This unit is  number 672 of 1,855 V-Spec IIs  produced. But it is not a production model, it has some very well chosen modifications. The stock 2.6-litre, 6-cylinder, 6-speed transmission stays true to stock, but features a  Nismo carbon fiber intake and GReddy  intake  manifold , plus a radiator and a Trust exhaust.

And of course it is lowered with  Tein threaded body shock absorbers  so that the Volk TE37s fill the wheel arches perfectly. Sober and elegant.