Midweek Motoring with Gavin D’Souza
Launched in 2007, the R35 Nissan GT-R, or Godzilla as its fans like to call it, has always had an appeal that was more about engineering geekery than conventional aesthetics.
Like its predecessor the R34 Skyline GT-R, it isn’t the prettiest flower in the garden, sacrificing graceful lines for a more purposeful and imposing look, carved out by the best car designer in the business – Physics.
Some argue that, while built to fastidious Japanese standards of precision, the cabin lacked that vital air of quality and prestige that comes as standard equipment with the machines this car was designed to compete with.
But a different kind of comparison with these same competitors is what truly sets the GT-R apart as one of the car world’s greatest giant slayers.
Thanks to that phenomenal nerdiness, dynamically, it could shame the wheels off cars costing more than twice as much; a fact that was rather childishly contested over the past three years with one famous German manufacturer of rear-engined sports cars.
In that time, the competition stepped its game up, but now so has Nissan.
The 2011 GT-R has received upgrades in all the areas you would expect – engine, suspension, brakes and aerodynamics – as well as one area where you probably would not – luxury.
It now comes in four variants, instead of the original two, and joining the standard version and the sharpened-up Spec-V are the Club Track Edition – a track-only model for budding racers to train with, and the weirdly named EGOIST (uppercase for added EGO) – a more luxurious variant.
Of course, Nissan’s idea of luxurious is some German-made quilted leather upholstery in a variety of colours, and a fancier sound system. But hey, whatever works.
All cars get new bumpers, front and rear, LED running lights and a slightly revised grille, while the EGOIST acquires the Spec-V’s carbon spoiler and titanium exhaust.
In standard form, power and torque from the same twin-turbocharged 3.8-litre V6 are up from 356kW and 590Nm to 390kW and 612Nm respectively (the Spec-V forces this up to 632Nm in over-boost mode), thanks to an ECU remap and some good old fashioned boost pressure.
The suspension is quite heavily modified and recalibrated too, with a new kind of aluminium shock absorber in use, allowing for quicker reactions to changes in weight distribution under hard cornering.
There are new lightweight forged-aluminium wheels from Rays which surround larger brake discs and are ensconced in a new, highly evolved breed of Dunlop tyre for added grip and strength.
If all this talk of subtle techno-tweaking has you yawning, rest easy in the knowledge that it has all paid off, because the boys at Nissan wouldn’t release a brand new GT-R to the world without whipping it around the playground and beating the school record.
Yes, we must once again revisit the Nurbürgring where Godzilla first set the 7m29s lap time that started the Great Slap-Fight with Porsche.
Allegedly, the new car has since bested that time (as well as the Corvette ZR-1’s 7m26s) with a wet-conditions Nordschliefe lap of 7m24s. Scrub a few seconds off that for the weather and we’re into Porsche GT2 RS territory!
Still the best value-for-money sports car ever? At an estimated $173,000, we’d say so.
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