Re: Nissan GT-R Officially Revealed
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Channel 4's 4Car
Nissan GT-R on road and track | Features | 4car | channel4.com
As you walk up to Nissan's new GT-R for the first time, key in hand, it could be that you have some idea in your head of what this menacing, muscle-bound 480bhp V6 twin-turbo 4WD Japanese super-coupe might be like.
But you'd be wrong. You'd expect it to be fast - that goes without saying. And pretty full-on and raunchy. Now multiply all that by a factor of, say, five and you're starting to get close to what the GT-R's all about.
To cut to the chase, the GT-R is simply phenomenal, redefining normal parameters of what 'quick' might mean, especially when that very special 3,799cc twin-turbo V6 is spooled up and really into its stride. We're talking 0-60mph in 3.5 seconds and a 193mph top end here, and that's just for starters.
Nissan GT-R gallery
Then there's the way all that performance is delivered to the road, the way the GT-R attacks corners and makes a great car like the 350Z feel puny. No kidding. Be in no doubt, the GT-R is something special. Delve underneath, for instance, and the GT-R body structure, a complex mixture of steel, carbon-fibre and aluminum based on a completely new
platform, is immensely stiff and strong.
The Nissan's unique 4WD driveline with six-speed independent rear transaxle is something else that sets it apart. The controls, especially the brakes and steering, are not what you'd call light. The ride is unremittingly hard, and handling and grip levels simply immense. For all that, the GT-R proves disconcertingly easy to drive, even around town. All those years of intensely secret development to make it faster, less frightening and better tied down than the
Porsche 911 Turbo, Nissan's benchmark car, have really paid off. And it's a lot cheaper, too.
Fresh from its hugely hyped launch at October's Tokyo Motor Show, the GT-R is, in the metal, spectacular to behold: big and bold, with those sharp body creases, curious C-pillar kink and trademark four round tail lights giving it a powerful, uniquely Japanese sporting stance.
The GT-R is a 2+2. The rear seats look stylish but headroom is severely limited. The boot is usefully deep, though. Slide behind the GT-R's thick, three-spoke wheel and the bucket seat gives you a great driving position. This is a serious, no-nonsense cabin, but it also feels tight and claustrophobic and ahead of you is what I believe to be the GT-R's biggest weakness: the plain, geeky dashboard with its high cowl, mass of cheap-looking buttons, awful air vents and plain vanilla instruments. It's a million miles away from the classy look and feel of an Audi or Porsche.
Nissan GT-R gallery
Press the button and the GT-R's hand-built 3.8-litre twin-turbo V6 fires into life. This is the first ever V6 in the GT-R's history and boy, does it deliver. Once upon a time the GT-R had to live with a pathetic 280bhp power cap in Japan. No longer: this new engine bangs out an eye-widening 480bhp at 6,400rpm and generates 433lb-ft of
torque between 3,200 and 5,200rpm, yet it's impressively clean for a car of this type.
It emits a menacingly deep rumble that Skyline GT-R owners would immediately recognise and hooks up a clever six-speed GR6 dual-clutch sequential transmission, complete with steering wheel
paddleshift controls. To give the GT-R perfect front/rear weight distribution, the 'box sits at the back of the car as part of that independent, soft-mounted transaxle. Drive from engine to transaxle is via a carbon-fibre propshaft. Then a steel shaft takes the power to the front wheels.
As you move off, the GT-R feels big, heavy and wide, but also massively strong and very focused. As you gingerly press the right pedal, the V6 turbo immediately responds, revving easily up to three, four grand, the turbo boost fast, powerful and progressive.
The engine's set up to deliver nearly 70% of its
torque with ordinary low-rev driving. It sounds hard, businesslike and not musical like an Alfa V6, but you forget all about that as the engine gets into its stride. It will zoom very happily up to the 7,000rpm red line, and is happiest between 4,000 and 7,000rpm. That's where the GT-R is sensationally, gobsmackingly fast and as you zap through the gears, the changes come as rapidly as you can think them, exhilaratingly clean and sharp every time. This brilliant 'box, which can also run as a straight auto, does great blips on downshifts, too. It also whirrs and clicks at low speeds, like a racing car.
Nissan GT-R gallery
The sharp and exploitable chassis has double wishbone front and multilink rear suspension and you can vary the stiffness of the trick Bilstein electronic damping. 'Sports' is where you'll want to be most of the time. 'R' is intended for track driving, and makes the ride extremely brittle if you use it on the road. 'Comfort' brings with it waves of body float, which is odd in a GT-R. There is also an 'R' button on the dash that gives faster gearchanges and makes the VDC stability control cut in later, or turns it off completely. But again, these are really for the track.
It's a big, weighty car. It's longer and wider than a Corvette and yes, the 1,740kg kerb weight is more than its creators wanted. But for a big coupe, the GT-R is amazingly agile, and packs huge amounts of grip. While turn-in is tenacious, the sharp, high-geared steering (just 2.5 turns lock-to-lock) needs a bit of getting used to. On the track the steering action is superb, imparting fantastic precision, weighting and feedback. But on fast rural roads, the GT-R can feel a bit nervy. Just a slight movement of the wheel can see the car shift position quite dramatically, and on rutted rural roads it tends to tramline.
Understeer? Forget it. Old GT-Rs would run wide at the front, but with the new car that's all been dialed out. It just goes around corners. It's reluctant to
oversteer too: even though the GT-R's sophisticated ATTESA E-TS four-wheel drive system normally feeds 100% of the
torque to the rear (or up to 50% to the fronts if they start to slip), powerslides on normal dry roads are for serious students only. You'd need a wet roundabout, some brave pills and/or the VDC switched off completely to get those unique 20" Bridgestone runflats to break traction.
After driving it on the road I get nine laps on the track in the GT-R. The car's responsiveness, its top-end power and the war cry from the engine is a breathtaking and addictive combination.
With all the settings on R, the GT-R has staggering front-end grip, even if you dive into a bend too late and too fast. When pushed hard in high-speed corners on the track, yes, it will
understeer, but essentially this is a neutral car that's more stable and way easier to drive fast than Porsche's charismatic but decidedly rear-engined 911 Turbo.
Nissan GT-R gallery
Still, at the end of the day, the GT-R is not a Porsche, despite its performance. It's just not 'premium' enough. But it is, without question, a very serious, hardcore, focused, high-performance driving tool that truly does live up to the hype. It's also spectacularly affordable, at least in Japan, where it's on sale for a ridiculous £35K-£37K. Brits will have to wait until the spring of 2009 for official cars to arrive, with prices yet to be disclosed, so in the meantime the grey marketeers will be coining it in.
Everyone's talking about the
Audi R8,
Porsche 911 GT3 and
Ferrari 430 Scuderia. Now there's another name to add to the list. The Nissan GT-R is that good.
