The Death of Speculation

Perception of an unfamiliar product does not equal reality. Although sometimes unaware, many of us have probably been influenced by the opinions of others who don't have all their facts straight. This is a problem that runs amok on internet car forums.

It all starts out innocently in our 10w30 powered corner of cyberspace- Data for a new vehicle is released, and people react to it. Based on that, opinions are formed, lines drawn, sides chosen, and finally, the cannons begin to fire. I’m sad to admit I have partaken in this by sometimes commenting on vehicles I had absolutely zero real life experience with. One such car was the Nissan GT-R.

As any thirty-something who was a product of the Gran Turismo generation, I have an affection for Skylines. Nevermind the fact that I’ve never driven one and have only seen a couple in my life, I love them. They’re highly tunable, twin turbocharged, rev happy inline six cylinder cars with a robust all wheel drive system that demands respect. So imagine my skepticism when the first iteration we see for retail in this country loses its traditional style manual transmission, gains a good degree of heft, and gives up its proven straight 6 for a V6.

Ah, the internet forums were ablaze with words like “pig”, “autotragic”, and “bastardization.” You see, when formulas deviate and don’t conform to what we deem as right, we might sometimes grow arrogant and believe we know better than the engineers behind the scenes. We sometimes might proclaim failure over something that could be sheer brilliance. Different, mind you, but still brilliance. And such is the case with the new GT-R.

I have a friend and fellow car enthusiast who works for Nissan corporate. This lucky schmuck has driven a Nissan GT-R on more than one occasion, so please realize that my name calling has more to do with envy than anything else. Said schmuck morphed immediately into superhero during a fifteen second phone call yesterday when he asked me to come outside, because he was bringing a GT-R by my office!

Fast forward a few minutes, and I’m standing outside my building, waiting for aforementioned chariot to come visit. I didn’t want to look too excited, but some of my friends and co-workers knew what I was up to. So we did not all look like starving, wide eyed pigs in our pen, I placed them like well camouflaged snipers in various places, lookouts where they too could see the GT-R, but not where they would interfere with my turn to roll in the mud.

I heard him before I saw him, the GT-R sounded like an aircraft on final approach. A moment later it arrived, a black on black example that had a mighty curb presence, with all the subtlety of a stealth fighter you might happen to catch a glimpse of while in a military hangar. The yellow Brembos shone out of the rims in stark contrast to the rest of the car. The Bridgestone tires were massive and war torn from serious use. Although the car weighs in at around 3800 pounds, it was smaller to behold than I expected.

My friend offered me a look in the cabin, and I was impressed. I found the materials in the GT-R to be of substantially higher quality than what you would find in an Evo or STI. The seats, the digital dash, and the steering wheel are all quite upmarket in comparison.

And what I thought was the climax of the story turned out to only be the beginning. My friend came along with a couple of his co-workers, and one was a gentleman who had some track time in this car. At this point that I was informed that he would be taking me for a quick ride!

So here is where the fun starts. The torque this engine produces is just senseless. It starts pulling relatively low in the powerband and then never relents. Weight is much less of a negative factor when you have ample power to offset it.

One thing that a person who is new to the GT-R will notice right away is the transmission. This is an unapologetic racecar with a transmission designed for performance first and comfort last. The shifts are lightning fast, often violent, and you find yourself already rocketing forward in the next gear before you could have completed an upshift in a traditional manual car. I have never been a fan of these newer style transmissions because they isolate the driver from the full experience of man and machine interface, but there is no denying that they are substantially faster. I guess that Nissan engineers asked their product planners if they want to have a slower driver actuated clutch or they just want to go fast. Voila. We got the racecar transmission. Don’t pout, it is awesome and perfect in this application.

This car handles well for a big car, but the real beauty is the point and squirt nature it has. It goes something like this: Setup for corner, enter corner, stay on line, stand on throttle earlier than you would dare in most other cars, blast toward horizon like freaking rocket. This car’s balance is not upset by its abrupt power. It just gets there faster… A whole lot faster than you’d think physics dictates it should.

And so my ride came to an end as fast as it began, but left me with a real opinion to replace months of internet bile. And I am left to conclude that the GT-R is an awesome, serious track car that is not to be trifled with, an affordable supercar that can slay giants more than twice its price. I'll even go on record as saying its the best car I've ever ridden in. Godzilla is finally here in the States, and it hasn’t been watered down at all.