Car: Nissan GT-R
Prices: £56,795 – £59,395 on the road
Insurance Group: 20
Emissions: tba
Performance: Max Speed 194mph / 0-60 3.5s
Fuel Consumption: 23mpg
Safety: front, side and curtain airbags, ATESSA ET-S four-wheel-drive with traction control, ESP.
Dimensions: length/width/height (mm) 4650/1895/1370
THE RETURN OF GODZILLA
Our Rating: 7.7 / 10
The Nissan GT-R reprises a legend that can be traced back to the iconic Skyline GT-R of 1989. This time round, it’s coming equipped with a whole lot more power. Andy Enright reports
Tucked away amongst the beet fields of Hokkaido, Japan’s north island, is a tiny piece of Germany. Signs point to Koblenz and there are perfect replicas of autobahn rest stops. The road surface is Germanic and if you wait a while you might hear the keening roar of a turbocharged Porsche 911 flying past at three miles a minute. Think of that as bait for what Nissan has straining at the leash in a nondescript lock up garage.
To understand the significance of Nissan’s GT-R, a little historical perspective is required. The GT-R badge can be traced back to 1969, when it appeared on the squared off rump of a Skyline powered by a 24-valve 2.0-litre straight-six, although it gave few clues as to what lay ahead. Fully twenty years would elapse before the Skyline GT-R legend would be realised. The Skyline R32 GT-R was a truly breathtaking achievement, truly the first Japanese supercar. With computer-controlled all-wheel drive and four-wheel steering, a 2.6-litre straight-six with twin ceramic turbochargers and 276 horsepower, it created a template that lives on today.
The Japanese media dubbed the car Obakemono-monster but perhaps a more charismatic nickname came from, Australia, where news of its unprecedented racing success saw it christened ‘Godzilla’. The Skyline GT-R got bigger and heavier in R33 (1995) and R34 (1999) guises but it’s back, albeit with the Skyline badge deleted. The 2008 Nissan GT-R hasn’t just evolved. Like the scaly dinosaur that grew from a post-atomic Japan, this Godzilla has radically mutated.
For years Nissan played lip service to the Japanese ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that limited its cars to 276bhp. When the company claimed to have set a sub 8 minute lap of the Nürburgring in the Skyline GTR-33 back in 1995, whispers suggested this car was packing closer to 350bhp and few Skyline owners left their cars standard. The reason for this was that the GT-R was a heavy old lump and compared to a Subaru Impreza or Mitsubishi Evo, 276bhp just doesn’t cut it. With the 2008 GT-R, the gentleman’s agreement has been torn up, shredded and burnt, the 3.8-litre V6 now churning out 485PS which is enough to power the car to 60mph in 3.5 seconds and on to a top speed of 194mph.
Unofficially, Nissan’s engineers claim a 7:38s lap of the Nürburgring, which makes the GT-R quicker than the latest Porsche 911 Turbo – the benchmark rival in terms of dynamics. Twin turbos are built into the exhaust manifold, the engine is set back behind the front axle line for better weight distribution and it even boasts a four-wheel drive, double clutch transaxle. And carbon fibre propshafts. Even the ATTESA E-TS all-wheel drive system is now sharper and faster.
The GT-R is an astonishing piece of engineering, of that there is no doubt. The attention to detail is stunning. The dashboard display has been designed by Polyphony, the people who brought us the Gran Turismo Playstation games and displays g-force, drive distribution, speed, braking and acceleration pressure and turbo boost amongst many other functions. The drag coefficient is 0.27, which is virtually as slippery as a Toyota Prius. Weight distribution is a perfect 50:50, helped by the transaxle setup to separate the weights of engine and gearbox/differential.
The twin-clutch paddle-shift gearbox, similar to Audi’s DSG system, shifts incredibly quickly and throttle blips on downchanges. The brakes are enormous Brembo units with five pistons at front and rear that will stop the GT-R from 100km/h in 36.9m. In Japan’s type approval tes
Nissan Introduces Invitation Concept
Japanese automaker Nissan seamlessly combined compactness, cuteness and the agility of a supermini with the baby SUV's generous cabin space in its recently unveiled Nissan Invitation. A B-segment concept for the upcoming Geneva Motor Show, the Nissan invitation signals the automaker's plan to continuously launch progressive crossover designs into the old continent's mainstream market sectors. I...
Nissan Vehicles to Lose Weight
In a bid to achieve better fuel consumption, Japanese carmaker Nissan has taken a harsh yet healthy decision of shedding a few pounds. The vehicle targeted by this new fitness programme is the Versa model, although it is believed that other models will eventually follow. After the carmaker has made a corporate goal of shedding at least 15% off the weight of each vehicle and placed the new model on a "low fat diet," the Versa now weighs about 150 pounds (68 kg) light...