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It’s a sheer marvel in car engineering and it really is the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show’s showstopper. Well, this car has been in the offing for around two years now so it was quite something seeing it jump off the planning stage and into the limelight in Tokyo.
It’s a truly striking design and if you get a whiff of what lies beyond its good looks, you will be amazed.
The GT-R's got a shape that is simple so aerodynamic and yet, thanks to a low drag coefficient of 0.27cd, it stays stable even at very high speeds.
It may have been a long time coming but this car will be well worth the price tag of around £60,000.
Inside the GT-R, it’s like a trip to the future. The center display gives you a whole lot of information. So you have the lap times, the acceleration, the G-force. This display was designed by Kazunori Yamauchi, who created Gran Turismo, the computer game series and well, it shows!
Now for what lies beneath all that glory and glitz.
The GT-R’s got a twin turbo 3.8 liter engine, 480 hp and IHI turbochargers. After each turbocharger come two catalytic converters. Instead of one cooler with two inlets, there are two coolers installed to ensure that the air is very precisely metered when it is pushed into the cylinders.
Where the transmission placement is very different from the earlier models. The combination transfer case and the dual-clutch transmission are coupled to the rear differential and called a transfermissiondiffcase.
Thanks to this, there is a balance of weight at the back and this counterbalances the front differential as well as the engine weight.
The GT-R has drive-by-wire throttle bodies and ATTESA, the all wheel drive system. There is a computer onboard that monitors the power to each wheel. The power is sent by the engine to the gearbox through a prop shaft.
From here, the power goes to both the front and rear wheels through another prop shaft. The gear box is not manual and the shift has three settings depending on what speed you want to drive at. The suspension is adjustable and this, together with the traction control can be set for cruising, fast driving or track driving.
With its 473bhp and 433lb/ft pulling power, the Nissan seems to have easily sailed past the Porsche 911 Turbo. It takes just 3.5 seconds for 0 to 60 mph and it can go to an amazing top speed of 192 mph. All in all, what a car!