March 18, 2014 • 44 mins
Released in Japan in 2007, the Nissan GT-R has quickly become an iconic car for Nissan. But what inspired it, and how does it compare with other supercars? Listen in to learn more about the Nissan GT-R.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff works dot com. All right,
welcome to car Stuff. I'm Scott Benjamin and I'm Ben
Bowling Ben to get a topic today. That boy listener
suggested it a long, long time ago. So we're again
making good on a promise, right, but it's a promise
(00:23):
that the long time come. Yes, we didn't say a
we didn't cite an exact date, but DJ blitz Creek
on Twitter, you were kind enough to remind us that
two years ago you would asked us to do a
podcast on the Nissan gt R two years ago, two
years back. I would bet that there were several other
(00:44):
suggestions along the way that said, you know, in a
long laundry list of things like and the Nissan gt
R and something else since right, so you know, we've
probably put this one on the back burner for a
little too long. Maybe it's time to hit it, right,
Uh huh, yeah, I think we should just I'm in
and talk about what it is, why so many people
like it, how it compares to other cars I guess
(01:08):
and that are swinging in its weight class. And uh
then maybe some things that people might not know about
the Nissan GTO Yeah, and you know what, there's a
there's a lot of positive press about this car. I mean,
there's a lot that's that's really really good about this thing.
Don't get me wrong. At the very end of this
podcast that you want to bring up one thing that um,
someone cited as being a negative and this was an
(01:29):
eye opener for me. It really was something that I
had never heard of, something kind of new, a new
system as a matter of fact, and I think it'll
be surprising to a lot of our listeners. So hang
on for that one. But let's just dive right in
and talk about I've gone to the the Nissan site
and I've got some two thousand and fifteen information if
you want to hear it just quickly before we get
kind of into like, um, you know it's predecessor, and
(01:52):
you know where it came from, its heritage and all that.
But let's just get kind of the lay of the land.
I guess on this, how about that? Right on? All? Right?
So there are three cars to shoot is from. Actually,
if you're gonna buy a Nissan gt R, you've got
three options, and it really just comes down to, uh,
you know, editions I guess there's the Base Edition, which
if you can call it base, really it's it's called Premium,
which is I think smart on their part that they
(02:13):
call their base vehicle the premium vehicle. UM. That's that's
that retails that one hundred and one thousand, seven hundred
and seventy dollars. Now that's for the base Nissan gt R.
That's gone up significantly since uh man, i'd say, four
or five years ago, even when it seems to me
like it used to be priced right around the eighties,
it was like eighty one eight thousand something like that.
(02:35):
It's gone up significantly. But there's a lot of good
reasons for that, and we'll talk about those today. Then
there's the Black Edition, which is the kind of the
middle of the range uh UM GTR and that retails
for about a hundred and eleven thousand, five hundred dollars
and that's got some you knows on special features that
we'll talk about. And then there's the top dog, which
is the Track Edition, and that is one hundred and
(02:56):
fifteen thousand, seven hundred and ten dollars for the ms
R P and UM. You know a lot of them
have a lot of there's a lot of similarities between
all these cars, but there's also a few differences that
you know, incrementally allowed to be stepped up in price
by Nissan. Yeah, and uh, the reason that they've I
guess you could say, expanded this variety of things that
(03:17):
are still GTR but unique to their own uh, unique
to their own niche I guess in the car buying
world is that the GTR has become since the late
nineteen sixties, the g trs quickly become an iconic vehicle, said,
nine sixties. Huh, But as you know, uh, the very
(03:41):
first GTR was actually a Skyline, right, and so in
nineteen sixty nine, Nissan begins producing a high performance version
of its Skyline sedance and they call these the Nissan
Skyline g t R. UM. People love this thing from
(04:02):
from the moment it comes out. It's uh. People love
it on the road, they love it on the racetrack.
And although you're not gonna see a GTR badge Skyline
right now, Um, a lot of the what we could
call it's d n A comes from the Skyline. Oh definitely, yeah,
I mean I'm sure that uh, you know, people can
(04:23):
definitely see the the the intent behind the modern GTR
with what they had done with the previous g trs.
Now there previous GTRs, the Skyline GTRs, those are produced,
as you said, nineteen sixty nine until nineteen seventy four,
and then there's a gap in production and they didn't
produce the Skyline GTR um. I don't know about the
Skyline itself. I didn't even look into that. I apologize.
(04:45):
I think the Skyline was still around. Uh. Then they
brought back the GTR badged vehicles for nine through two
thousand two, right, just for a little bit. Yeah, just
for a little bit. And uh and then they said,
you know, let's take this away again and we're gonna
really really work kind of thing. We're gonna revamp it
and we're gonna bring it back out. I think they
had a concept vehicle in two thousand one that came out.
(05:07):
There was a I need to say something about the
concept vehicle. If no one's ever seen the two thousand
one concept vehicle from the Tokyo Motor Show, Yeah, two
thousand one Tokyo Motor Show, Motor Show. That the concept
vehicle looks nothing like the present day Skyline or I'm sorry,
not this kind of the the g t R, And
to me it looks at an awful lot like a
(05:28):
an Infinity G thirty five sport coupe. And I think
it almost looks exactly like that, only with a flatter,
taller front end, which is kind of surprising. But then
you think, like, okay, well, Infinity, this this does make
sense because Infinity is the luxury division of Nissan. So
they took that that prototype design, they said, well, that
kind of that body style kind of works for us.
(05:49):
It's more Infinity, they said, than it is exactly. And
then they came out with a second UM concept vehicle,
which was David a little later, exactly two thousand five,
and that the vehicle was much much closer to what
we see on the road today as the as the
Nissan gt R. Yeah, it was UM. They would say,
it's an extensive redesign. I would argue it may as
(06:11):
well be a different vehicle entirely UM and much closer
to the actual production GTR that we see on the road.
So the prototype of the concept that came out in
two thousand five, I think they said something like eight
of that vehicle would make it to the the street
vehicle right, which comes out in two thousand seven, at
least in the Japanese market. It's two thousand eight here
(06:34):
in the US. Uh. People people love it, people liked it. Um.
Let's see, it was also two thousand eight in Canada.
Didn't get to Europe till two thousand nine. Uh. But
they said the there's a reason for this uh staggered release. Um.
And it's an interesting reason which I did not know beforehand.
(06:56):
Nissan had to build performance centers in these markets to
UM service the car. Interesting, so they didn't have the
ability to do that up until the GTR was around. Well,
I guess not. And they also had they also had
a little bit of a bottleneck with production because the
engine and the gearbox are assembled by hand. Uh, so
(07:19):
around the world they can only make one thousand cars.
Amounth you know, I'm glad you mentioned the engines because
we do need to talk about the engines and these things.
And I'm shuffling notes that you may hear this, but
the the engines are put together one at a time
by one individual in a clean room situation. So UM.
Now it's it's pretty amazing the way this happens. Now
(07:39):
there's only eight people that are allowed the honor, they say,
of building GTR engines. So your engine, if you're in,
if you want a g t R, your engine was
built by one person in one room over of course.
I I don't know how long it is, maybe a day,
I'm not sure, but it's it's built in a dust free,
temperature controlled clean room situation where um, through all of
(08:00):
it's testing and everything there. It's it goes through something
like forty four minutes of bench testing, UM, and break
in where the engine is red line for ten solid
minutes and UM. And then finally you know, when the
whole thing is tested out okay, and everything's put into
the vehicle and then it's put through its taste, its
paces rather at a place called the uh tochig E
test track. So it's taken to a test track and
(08:22):
then and then run you know hard, I'm sure. But
each one is signed, and I don't know if you
can call it signed. I guess the badge is put
on the on the engine that says who built that
engine and where and all the all the of the
eight exactly who have the eight built your engine? So
it's it's it's pretty neat it's pretty neat thing. It's
very um um a personal touch to right, and it's
a high quality engine to the vehicles powered by a
(08:46):
VR thirty eight d E t t V six. Uh
so that is three point eight leader uh two thirty
one eight cubic inches. Uh, it's got some it's got
some interesting stuff there because it also has two parallel
turbo chargers that just come with the g t R.
(09:06):
And let's see, the engine output can vary depending on
the model. So um with the especially with the newer
ones between two thousand seven two thousand ten, UM, they
have some different claims for the rpm um between those years,
and that the rpm probably the horse power I've bet
(09:27):
uh yeah, horse power as well horse power and RPU okay, okay,
so maximum rpm all right, so yeah, I think around
two I've got numbers for about two thousand nine on
and my two thousand nine numbers say something like four
horse power and four thirty pound feet of torque, and
um stepping up to you know, two thousand fifteen, which
is where we are now, I guess the model year anyways,
(09:49):
five forty five horse power, and they've actually been at
five forty five since two thousand, but the zero to
sixty times are rapidly dropping. I mean they went from
three three and a half seconds in two thousand nine
down to two point seven seconds in two thousand fourteen,
and the two thousand fifteen numbers haven't been really released yet.
It's still kind of up in the air. And you know,
(10:10):
a lot of that is due to the change in materials,
because they've started using carbon fiber right um, exactly, and
the rear spoiler, the grill, the break ducts. You can
get a couple of extra carbon fiber goodies if you've
got the scratch, you know, let's talk about a few
of the different models here quickly. We can get back
to that, because I want to talk about the nerber
(10:31):
Ring and you know something, because you know it's tested there,
of course, you know, as every supercar is. Really Oh
that's another one quick thing. They say that it's not
a supercar. They call it the supercar, and that's kind
of their tagline for this whole thing. But I've got
a question for you, and it's just kind of a
little bit off track before we get into some of
these additions. And but when you look at the the
(10:51):
Nissan gt R I mean, it's a nice looking, you know,
sport coad high performance ve. Yeah, it's a great looking
sport coop. It's it's very very already you know you're
gonna love it. But does it look like a supercar? You? Okay,
it does not look like a supercar to me, but
it behaves like one. It behaves like one, and I
and I enjoy that that surprise kind of it reminds
(11:15):
me just a little bit of our sleeper car episode. Now,
I don't think it looks asleep enough. If if you
can say that, it's a it's a fast looking car,
but it's not like something low and wide and extremely
uh um, I don't know, swoopy. I guess with its
design or angular right, it looks like you could despite
the speed, it looks like you could use it as
(11:37):
a daily driver. It's not a typical European supercar, no,
not at all. It doesn't fit the stereotype. Now, it
really doesn't. It doesn't have like you know, the extremely
um well we've already talked about. I mean, it just
doesn't have the appearance of let's say McLaren or you
know that any Lamborghini type of right, and especially I
keep going back to that it rides a little higher
(11:58):
than those vehicles to sure, yeah, but I mean in
traffic though it does stand out. Though it's still absolutely
it still a gorgeous car. I mean, I see them
around here around town all the time, and they're really
really nice. And I've seen them at car shows and
things like that, you know, be able to kind of
look inside and see what they're all about. But I mean, honestly,
they're not anything overly flashy. I guess you know what,
(12:19):
flashy might be the best word, because I think we all,
we all tend to associate the name supercar, the term
with this sort of I don't want to say garish,
but very very much of a of a showy vehicle.
Right that The aesthetic is um is designed to turn heads,
and this car is a head turner, but it's not
(12:41):
outrageously so exactly exactly. So all right, so let's get
back into and you know, I kind of wonder what
our listeners are thinking about that. Yeah, maybe right in
and tell us what you think is the g TRS
look doesn't look like a supercar, yeah, exactly. And uh,
and so let's get back into some of these, uh,
the models, some of the features. I guess the models,
you know what what they come with, because you know,
for jump up in price of about ten thousand dollars
(13:03):
and then another one up another four thousand dollars, you
kind of wonder what you get for that, because all
of these have the same engine, the same transmission, the
same breaks. Uh, they get the same highway miles. You know,
it's twenty three rated, twenty three highway in sixteen city,
So that's all the same. Uh. There's a lot of
similarities between these cars. But where it breaks down really
is the is the the availability of some of these
(13:25):
I guess, the optional equipment that you add on to
this thing. Only they do it in packages so that
you buy it as an addition. So you get these
three different addition options. Plus there's other options that you
can add on to that, and we'll talk about those two. Um,
just at least just a few of them, because there's
so many of these things. UM. So if you go
up from the from the Premium version, you go up
to the up to the Black Edition. So the Premium
(13:45):
edition has a three point eight leader V six engine
which we mentioned, twin turbot horse powers something like that,
very strong it has a dual clutch, six speed transmission. Um,
it's got you know, twenty in wheels. Uh, some Embo
braking system. It's very very strong. Um. Then if you
go up to the Black Edition, you get everything in
(14:05):
the Premium features addition plus you get a dry carbon
fiber rear support, rear spoiler, you get twenty and special
dark finished type of wheels. You know, it's just a
different appearance package, I guess for that. And then you
get a different type of interior package, which is a
black red Ricardo front seat package that that comes along
with this whole thing, right, it's kind of a deluxe interior.
(14:27):
And then if you go to the Track Edition, you
get everything that's included in not only in the Premium
and the Black Edition. You get you get these additional features.
You get carbon fiber air and lets, you get a
track tune suspension which you don't get the others, and
you get a blue gray leather appointment front. You get
blue gray leather seats. They are appointed somehow in a
(14:48):
special way. I'm not sure exactly what that is, hand
hand stitched or whatever it is. And carbon fire. I
mentioned carbon fiber airon Let's already didn't they y, Yeah, Okay,
so you get a lot of different extras, and I
think the Track Edition also has a carbon fiber deck
lit a trunklet, which the other one doesn't have. But
it's painted so you don't even recognize it from the
outside if if you're not like touching and moving exactly.
(15:12):
But it's supposedly, you know, a much stronger, much stiffer,
lighter way. Of course you're savings. I forget how many
pounds they saves, but it's pretty significant. And uh, you know,
these packages, all of them you can add, well some
of me can, somebody you can't. You have to go
through Nissan's website and find out what's available, what's what's optional,
what's not available. But some of the things that I
can just point out real quickly, and the packages is
(15:33):
um They have a premium paint job that you can
get that's something like like three thousand dollars more than
any other the standard the Opal black, right, I think
it's a silver that i've there. There's a different type
of black that's also tell me about the silver one. Well,
the silver one has some kind of type of special
treatment in between. I think it's like a hand rub
polish that you know, it's um, it's several more steps
(15:57):
I guess to get the premium silver pain that that
they're talking about. And UM. Mostly there's also, of course
a red amber interior package, which is like another four
thousand dollars. There's UM, I guess a couple of those.
I think there's an Ivory Ivory leather interior package. There's
also a cold Weather package which is not available on
the Black Edition or the Track Edition, but only available
(16:20):
on the Premium edition. And that's a zero cost option,
which is kind of nice. You can get um, you know,
I think there's like a special fift mix that comes
along with that, and special tires that you get along
with you know, the wheel package that already comes on
the premium version, so you know, and and this is
just the tip of the iceberg, these these features and
selections and options on these things that it goes on
(16:42):
and on and on for I mean, it must have
been fifteen or sixteen pages that I printed out here
that I will not go through. I'm going to spare
the listeners all that, but there's other things, other other
parts that I'd like to go through if you want,
I mean, yes, but but first I have to ask
a questions and let us know what you think. Now,
speaking of letting people know what you think, Uh, Scott,
(17:05):
I gotta tell you, I've been reading some reviews for
the Nismo G t R. Yeah and um, and I
have to ask you, what do you think about that vehicle?
Let me tell you that is a fantastic vehicle. Now,
of course Nismo is uh you know, the Nissan's tuning division.
I guess I don't know how did it really say that?
(17:26):
Maybe that's the is that it's not your average What
I think what is important for us to say that
is a good way to say it. Um, the Nismo
G t R is not your average Nissan gt R, definitely. Um.
I just wanted to uh spend some time just talking
about this real quick as a sidebar. Um, all right,
(17:47):
so this is a this has a turbocharge three point
eight leader V six and uh there's some great reviews
about it. First off, it's incredibly power. Are full more
powerful than the standard gt are even more powerful than
the Track edition, right yeah yeah yeah, and uh they
(18:08):
some reviews I've read say that, uh it's in the
six horse power range. Uh, and they say that might
be a conservative. I've heard that too, but you'll see
it printed sometimes as low as five which again I
say as low as that come on horse power, very
very wheels. Yeah, I mean that the exactly that the
(18:29):
top numbers go well above six hundred, so you know,
it depends on where you're looking. And and lots of torque.
I mean it has an additional torque as well, right, yeah,
and it's got some some great stability to control systems.
That mean, UH is much more agile than you would expect, exactly,
and so agile that this is the one that they
(18:49):
take out for their testing at the Nurburgring. Uh. Yes,
And here we go because you know, as we've talked
about many many times, I don't mean to step on
you here. This is what it was built. But you know,
as of now, the nesmode UH Nissan gt R is
currently number four on the all time fastest Nurburgring lap
(19:09):
time I guess greatest hits you know, all time, and
that's with a time of seven minutes eight seconds, exactly
seven minutes eight seconds. I mean that's that that's incredibly fast.
I mean you can and the cool thing about the
spend you can go to Nurburgring lap times dot com.
I'll say it again, Nerburgring lap times dot com and
you can watch and have the list, you know, I
(19:31):
have the list of everybody in order how fast they
finishing of the number one all the way through number one,
and you know, the number one hundred gets bumped off occasionally,
so it's currently number four. And the cool thing is
that you can click this little uh, you know, a
little button over on the side that says watch lap
now or something like that. You can watch an in
car lap of that vehicle doing that doing that lap
(19:53):
of the Nrburgring at that time, so you know, like
the official lap and it's not available for all of them. However,
the g t R is one that you can watch
the full lap of, so you can watch the full
seven minutes and eight seconds if you want, and see
exactly how fast this thing does. I guess attack the
Nurburgring really because that's a good mean, it definitely attacks
the track. You won't believe how quick this thing is.
(20:15):
And although although I have heard people say before that um,
the lap time the Nurburgring is not is not necessarily
a benchmark that should be treated as important as we
do treat it. I have to say, man, it's it's
in my opinion, it is mandatory for a car of
(20:36):
this caliber to be on the Nurberg Ring. Definitely you
have to be if you want to be UM, if
you want to be considered as a peer group, you know,
and if you want to be taken seriously within that
group of or in that world that this thing revolves.
And I guess I don't know it's maybe the best
way to say that or not, but it's um. It's
(20:56):
it's kind of the sandbox that it plays in. It
needs to be able to to stand up and say like,
here's what we can do. You know, we're we're right
up there with you guys. Right, And speaking of that
kind of peer group and competition stuff, Uh, let's go
ahead and mentioned that the g t R s no
stranger to head to head comparisons, Right, We've seen that
(21:18):
the g t R go against the Porsche nine eleven
g T three the BMW M three. UM in both
cases it was uh, it was found to be the
faster one, the least that was in What was that
amazing for the Yeah, that's that's exactly where I'm going
because considering the price difference. That is just amazing. It is,
(21:41):
it really is. I mean, it's shocking to see that
it will compete with with the world leading cars like that. Now.
I mean I understand that it will, of course, you know,
based on everything that I've read about it recently, because
I've I've really done a thorough read through of of
what this thing has and I hope I'm conveying some
of this and we can't get to all of it obviously,
I'm gonna try to get to some of it today.
Want I also want to, uh, I also want to
(22:02):
say that, you know, towards the end here, I want
to talk about a little bit of aftermarket tuning before
we get to you know, that last thing, I guess,
but um, after market tuning. Let's say that for just
a bit, because there's some remarkable numbers being put up
by a particular aftermarket tuner that I want to tell
you about. UM kind of like the top end of
of what this thing is capable of at this point. UM,
(22:22):
So let's step through. Maybe let's step through the I guess,
the vehicle itself, you know, like the exterior, the interior,
some of the performance stuff. Maybe you know, some special
edition type stuff that we didn't get to some of of
the technology that's involved, because there's there's a little bit
of that that I think is fascinating as well. So
you know, if we get a little too long here,
we'll see what we have to do. Maybe. Okay, alright,
(22:43):
so x tray and I'll just try to laundry list
some of the stuff and make comments as I go.
How about that. Okay, I'll make some remarks to Okay, alright,
So for the exter and this comes from you know,
like the Nissan site, you know, like the brochure information.
So it sounds a little bit commercially, that's maybe why.
But we're gonna add some stuff along a little bits. Now.
It has what it has what they call a hybrid
(23:04):
body structure, which I thought was kind of neat, a
neat way to say it. I guess there's four different
types of materials used. They use high strength steel, die
cast aluminum, carbon fiber, and composite materials to build the
body of this thing. And it's not just that. It's
also built in a very precise way because they use
jigs a lot, like they do for um race cars.
When they put a tail the race car it's very
(23:25):
tight tolerance jigs that are used when they weld these
things together. Um. That allows them to create a very
precision build something. That's uh, not to say that you know,
your production car is any any less precise, but maybe
it's a little bit more tolerance and something like that
than what they would with a handbuilt vehicle like the
Nissan GTR. Right. And just to go ahead and outline
(23:46):
this point again, if anybody misheard that when they say
hybrid body, all they mean is that they're using different materials.
It's not it's not ment in any way to imply
that they are using He's of a hybrid beyond exactly
hybrid in the fact that you know it's it's steel
and carbon fiber and and composites and cast aluminum and
(24:08):
stuff like that, not not not all carbon steel, um,
which would be outlandiously heavy in this vehicle. Um. Oh
you know what, here's something about the exterior and the
hand polished finish that we mentioned. Oh yeah, it says
it's unique to the optional to the optional color Super Silver,
which is a paint color that you can select for
any of the models. I guess now there's an extensive
(24:29):
hand polishing that goes on between each coat, and it's
performed under three different light sources to reveal any imperfection.
So it's kind of like a an above and beyond
paint job. I guess if you're really into that type
of thing, and I know some people are, they'll pay
extra for a special color or special treatment because they
know what pays off in the long run. I guess.
I mean, I don't know. I don't I don't recognize
(24:49):
it myself, but I'm not an auto detail or anything
like that, so I know some people can spot it
right away. Yeah, it's an investment, and if you know
what you're looking for, it's apparent the one thing that
I totally forgot. I've got to jump back in time here,
if that's okay, jump back in time and people are
probably asking themselves, well, Scott and Ben, if this car
(25:10):
was so popular when it first came out in sixty nine,
then why did it go away and then it comes
and why did it come back? Um? Well, an interesting
thing that we have to note is that, um, when
Nissan first stopped making the gt R, they didn't say
it's because it wasn't selling. They said because emission standards
and the international oil crisis. We're compelling it. And you
(25:34):
know what one quick note on that as well, I'll
kind of you know, add on to that is that
they want to make sure that, um, and this is
important through all the literature I found out is that
I want to say that the current they call it
the new GTR, which is you know, what we're seeing
now on the road, is all new. It's not really
an evolution of the original machine at all. It's not
(25:55):
like you know, when they do these incremental design changes
and it's like, well, let's update this and we'll all
that the new g t R. It's not that way
at all. This is an all new vehicle that we're seeing.
So it's not like, you know, you can go back
to the two thousand two vehicles and say, well I
just see, like I see what they did here. They
just changed this and they called it a brand new
vehicle for two thousand eight or seven rather but an
(26:16):
all new vehicle with all new chassis code and everything.
I mean, I think they called the R thirty five
because it's called the c B a R thirty five
for the chassis code, and um, it's I guess there's
a naming convention that's carried on from previous GTR generations.
But that's about it. The R thirty five thing, but
that's that's really it. When it also gets the same
nickname as the early earlier generation cars. It was nicknamed
(26:39):
Godzilla by an Australian publication back in nine Wheels Yeah,
I think it was Wheels in in nine and that
name just kind of stuck around and they still continue
to call the car Godzilla, which is obviously it's comical
for you know, a Japanese company to be built in
a car called Godzilla. Ye, it's funny. So I mean
it sounds it sounds like the kind a joke that
(27:00):
Australian magazine would make another This is a description I
heard of the gt R and it's not so much
a well known nickname, but I've read reviews that said, uh,
the g t R may well be a giant killer.
They called it because it goes back to what we
said about um about price comparison with performance. So uh,
(27:25):
you know, it's no, it's no real secret that Nissan
is directly competing with some companies that they think may
have gotten too comfortable in this area, one of the
big ones being Porsche, sure, and so UM, whose cars
are sometimes a hundred and forty hundred and sixty dollars exactly,
(27:47):
and so UM. You know, for the Nismo in particular,
they would say the appropriate competition for it should be
Porsche's GT three, But you know, the g T three
is um probably not to put up too much of
a fight, right, So it has to instead the GTR
The Nismo at least is going up against the nine
(28:07):
eleven Turbo, which UM price difference wise is pretty profound,
pretty significant. Yeah, and um, you know, yeah, and that
kind of play that dovetails into the thing that I
want to talk about at the very end of the
All right, good, so everybody stay on that. We wanted
to go do exteriors interies. If that's okay, I've got
some more exterior type things, and then maybe we'll talk
(28:27):
about interior. Then we can move on from there and
see where we are time wise, because I think we're
running a little bit long here on this one. Aerodynamics. Aerodynamics,
because there's actually, you know, everything you see on the outside. Sure,
I understand that, you know it's very sleek looking. Um,
it's maybe not as conventional as you would think for supercar,
like we talked about, right, super sleek design and big
(28:47):
fins and everything, But the underbody aerodynamics are very very
important in this car and and it's really they say
that virtually the entire underbody is covered by composite panels.
They give it kind of a flat aerodynamics purpose that
works for the car in a certain way. And there's
two ways that underbody air flow works for it. Um.
At the front of the car, the flat underbody is
accelerating the air and channels it over the breaks and
(29:09):
and you know, cools them. It reports a way to
cool them down, which is fantastic, great way to do that.
At the back of the vehicle, there's a carbon fiber
diffuser that takes the accelerated air and slows it down,
which creates a vacuum effect that helps I guess the
GTR kind of stick to the road or to the
track or wherever it is. So we've heard that a
lot of cases with these cars with the diffusers that
you know, it creates this um um low pressure area
(29:32):
I guess, or a vacuum that that kind of sucks
the car down and forward really you know, allows it
to allows it to power through turns, a little faster
than a car wood that doesn't have underbody aerodynamics like this,
so significant in that way. Um, there's other cars that
do have it. I mean, I'm not saying it's the
only one that does, but um, it's very well handled
in the GTR, right, and part part of this design,
(29:54):
part of the reason that it doesn't look like a
European supercar more orthodox supercar rather is um completely intentional
on Nissan's part. Uh Nissan's chief creative officer, uh Shiro
Nakamura uh likened the new g TR to some anime
to Gundham really, you know, like a yeah, giant robot
(30:17):
Scott Right. Well, okay, here's the quotation. Specifically, Nokomura says,
the g t R is unique because it is not
simply a copy of a European design supercar. It has
to really reflect Japanese culture. So they're building what, you know,
what they're aiming to do is make a uniquely Japanese
answer to the European supercar, the car that makes a
(30:40):
cultural impact as well as a I guess a performance statement.
Spot on, Yeah, I mean for for both of those cases. Right,
all right, So let's let's let's keep going on here
with our Let's move to the interior, okay, and I
do want to talk about technology a little later, so
you know, let's just skip over this interior part. I'm
gonna mention is quickly what they say here on online,
okay about the interior, and because really it's pretty uh,
(31:01):
I mean, it's on on the surface stuff. I mean
it's it's leather treatments and stuff like. That's the leather
pointed seats, eight way power adjustable driver's seat, uh Star.
It has carbon fiber um and charcoal brush metal trim,
which is kind of cool. I mean carbon fiber trim,
I understand that, and lots of leather and stuff like that.
That's that's fine. I mean I understand all that. But
you know, that's not really the stuff that we usually
(31:21):
talk about on car stuff. We don't talk about the
cosmetic type stuff typically exactly. So let's talk about performance,
all right. So it has something called a what they
call the premium what we talked about the engine already,
but it does have something called the Premium midship platform,
and that is how the engine really sits within the chassis.
And this is unique to the gt R and that
(31:44):
um the midship platform. This is this is kind of unusual. Um,
it sits the engine is it's the front engine, although
it sits mostly behind the front axle, so it's it's
it's it's way way back in the chassis. If you
think about it that way, it's got a long longhood
you'll notice. And um, because it's a V six. The
way that the styling works is because it's a V
(32:05):
six instead of you know, like a big V eight
or V ten or twelve. Even Um, it allows the
interior to have you know, kind of the flexibility. I
guess it's not it's not such a long engine as
it would be if it's a ten or twelve. So
it's a six, and it allows them to push it
back further in the chassis. It gives it a crisper
turn in, you know, like a quicker steering response, and
(32:26):
overall balanced to the vehicle. So you know, Um, the
balance is really important. Balance is very important in this.
I mean it's I think, what's the balance for this vehicle.
It's like fifty three for all different versions of this car,
So it's very well balanced. It's almost fifty fifty. It's
pretty close. Um, but overall it's done for you know,
the way that this thing performs on the track and
(32:47):
on the street, of course, but um, I think that
you know the way that they've done this. This is
this premium midship platform. It's it's so unique, it's so
different to this vehicle. I think if anybody else has
tried it recently, I haven't heard about it. The one
of the closest comparison actually is the FM or front
midship stuff that Nissan did earlier with the two thousand
(33:09):
one Skyline. So the Premium midship is sort of the
version two point oh of that I see. So they've
they've worked so so this is kind of an in
house Nissan thing. I see. I see. Now we've already
talked about the engine and how it's how it's handbuilt
and corrected by one of these eight people that are
I know, it's it's amazing that you have the system
that they go through. I would. I mean that that
(33:31):
has to be one of the coolest job descriptions in Japan.
You know, you meet you meet a stranger, you're at
a restaurant, you at a bar, hit none people or something,
and then and then they say, oh, so what do
you do? You know, Oh, I, um, well, I'm one
of the only eight people in the world who has
my job. I build engine That would be fun. I
(33:55):
imagine how how good you would be at that job.
You could probably do it blindfolded at a certain point
that they would be because it would be so precise.
But I'm saying that, you know that after a while
you would be so skilled at that position and doing
what you do. Can you imagine how how valuable a
person you would be in that company at that point?
Now I have Now I'm starting to have this this
really strange picture of the engineers responsible for the engines, Scott.
(34:19):
I'm seeing them, you know, just like the old soldier
of fortune eighties movies. They're hanging upside down, blindfolded, assembling
and dissembling and reassembling like the military type. Yeah, yeah,
you know, and there's other manufacturers that do similar things.
You know that there's there's certain people that are allowed
to build the engines, and that's it. But this is
a very select, very very very small group. And it
(34:42):
just sounds like such a cool environment to work in.
And I know every time it comes up, I just
astounded by it and he sounds just another one of them. Um.
Let's see suspension, that's something we should probably talk about. Guess, um,
you know it's it's really nothing unusual. I mean it's
four wheel independent suspension wheel DRIL Oh yeah, all wheld, right,
So let's talk about the the all wheel drive system. Now,
(35:02):
there's a fifty torqu split between the front and rear
axles typically, but because it's electronically controlled, um, the system
can provide up to one of all available torque to
the rear wheels at any time. So you know this
is uh, it can it can actually feel like you're
driving a rear wheel drive car when it needs to
feel like it's when you're driving a real world drive car. UM.
(35:23):
So you know it can neither be front rear. Work
me up to at the rear if necessary, but it
will never go on at the front, so it won't
feel like a front wheel drive car. Ever. The most
it would feel is fifty I believe. I don't know
if that that can change. I shouldn't say most. Maybe
there's a maybe there's a given take there, but it
will never go full front. I don't believe. And here's
(35:44):
here's something interesting, Uh, there has been a little bit
of controversy around the g TRS top speed. Yes, you
know what I think you do? Yeah, I think I do. Right.
The the top speed that Nissan states is a hundred
(36:04):
ninety three miles per hour, right, Uh, and this again
is for the production Nissa, not the Nismo. And uh,
motor Trend however, got a top speed of just a
little bit higher. Again. Okay, Now I've seen a number
as high as one nine. Yes, but you know this,
(36:25):
and after you're done, Ben, I don't know if you right.
All right, Well, let me tell you this. We've we've
talked about the Nissan gt R in a couple of
different ways here, and I'll struggle to remember this. I
don't know if I can or not. But we talked
about the GPS system within this car, right, So this
goes into something This is dipping into the technology just
a little a little early, but something I need to
(36:45):
say right now now From an older post in about
two thousands and seven, I read online somewhere about the
GPS system in Japan and it's a little different than
it is here in the United States, and that um
in Japan, the gt R is electronically limited to a
top speed of about a hundred and eleven miles per hour. Now,
I remember this is again this is about six years
old now at this point, seven years older. But this
(37:07):
is the information that we had early on about the
GPS system. Now and it's only in Japan. So limited
to a top speed of a hundred eleven miles per
hour in Japan. But when when the car's GPS determines
the cars at a racetrack, the speed limitter is completely
removed from the vehicle. But I didn't realize that was
only in Japan now when we talked about that in
the past, we thought that was everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(37:28):
And that's interesting because we've also read some racing reviews
or some performance tests where the reviewers have said, or
even the people conducting the test have said, if the
engine wasn't limited, they would they would have expected some
different performance. However, at the same exact time when all
that was going on, the you know, Japan limited one
(37:50):
hundred eleven miles per hour. In the United States, there
was no similar GPS integration going on, so our top
speed here was limited to something like a hundred and
fifts six miles even then. So even back the even
way back then it was now for two thousand fifteen,
as we said, it's already bumped up to I think,
is what they said, or depends on who you you know,
(38:13):
who you read, I guess and find out, you know,
what their top speed that they achieved was. But man,
that's a dramatic increase. And you know, I just wanted
to kind of clear that up because I know in
some other episode of you know along the way, we
mentioned this, uh, this GPS thing, how it was uh
so clever that you can figure out you're on a
race track and allow that letter to completely be erased
from the vehicle of the programming and just let it
(38:35):
go all out. Still one of the coolest things. Um,
here's another thing I kind of want to talk about. Um,
when we see this variation in not just top speed times,
but also in zero to sixty, you've seen some variation
for their for that. Um, there's an interesting wrinkle here.
(38:56):
People have reported, just with the production model itself, Nobell
some whistles that this g t R can hit zero
to sixty in as little as three point two seconds
if you use something called launch control. Yes, now, this
is some interesting technology that's getting into the technology that
I want to get after after I talk about UM
and I agree, we'll get to that that that feature
(39:20):
is really really cool. So, uh, just two more quick
things on the on the performance aspects of this thing. UM.
We mentioned just briefly that it has a you know,
strong strong Brembo brakes. I guess it is something we've
probably purpised in four pist in rear calipers and I
mean just six piston in front calipers, so very very
strong system from from Brembo. UM. What I really need
(39:42):
to talk about here is the last thing for performance,
I guess is the dual clutch six speed transmission, and
it's it's a sequential dual clutch transmission that shifts extremely
quickly when it's in something called our mode, which again
we'll talk about in technology it's coming up I pro
with you. But when you're in this our mode UM,
(40:03):
there's a there's a like a gear pre selection process
that goes on UM electronically in the transmission as you're driving.
And it's that's the only way I can describe it
quickly without really getting into too much detail. There's there's
a lot to that, but it's it's pre selecting the
gears around the gear that you're in, so that it
can say I'm ready to go to this gear or
(40:23):
this gear, depends on what the driver does and the
trans the transmission can shift and get this spend just
point one five seconds, so that's I mean literally as
fast as you blink your eyes. I mean I think
you blink in like point one point one of a second.
This is point one five So just slightly slightly longer
than it takes for you to blink your eyes is
(40:44):
how fast it can shift gears. So you know, everybody
who says that, you know, I wish it had a
manual transmission that I could actually you know, get in
and feel myself kind of rowing through the gears. This
this is outdoing that in a way. I mean in
in a in a big way really as far as
how quickly it can shift. So I know you're pointing
the point the paddle shifters and making it happen, but
you're not actually you know, grabbing the stick and shifting
(41:06):
for a second third as you would in a lot
of other vehicles, because it doesn't that much quicker with
the paddle shifts. And we've seen that in other vehicles
as well, but I just figured I pointed out here
because uh, this this type of technology is you know,
kind of streamlining itself, and it's coming down to even
some of the uh, the more typical sedans that we
see on the road every day. It's not just the
(41:26):
g t R. It's coming to a lot of different vehicles. Now. Uh,
this this quick shifting technology and the multi gear transmissions,
you know, seven nine automatics, they're getting very very um advanced,
very complex, not that they weren't before, but they're they're
upping the game even more. Yeah, and that's starting to
trickle down some more of the more of the I
(41:47):
don't want to say low end, but more accessible cars,
every day cars, every day cars is a nice way
to say. It's Scott. Before we get to the big
performance news here, you know, I just want to laundry
list of the numerous awards that the GTR is one
sound because we didn't talk about it. I don't know
if what I don't think we'll really have time to
go into racing as much as we should either. But um, alright,
(42:10):
so since two thousand and seven, this vehicle has won
uh more than a Baker's dozens of awards, including numerous
selections for a Car of the Year two thousand seven,
two thousand eight. Um, it's also in oh, well, let's
see two thousand nine as well. Um, it's motor trend
Car the Year. Often it's the champion of the targets
(42:32):
has Mania two thousand nine and two thousand ten. Um
it's been listed as having one of the best resale
values of any sports car. So you won't be a
pauper just because you aimed to tangle with some Porsche's.
I see, that's a big fear of a lot of
people why they won't buy a sports car exactly. Yeah,
(42:53):
instant devaluation. Right, yeah, it's uh, you lose what is it,
you lose like five grand when you drive off the lot. Oh,
I think it's I think it's something like something like that.
It's a big, big number. Um all right. And then
one of the last ones I thought was really impressive.
Guinness Book of World Records in two thousand eleven rated
(43:15):
this the fastest he rode to sixty time for a
four seater production car. Not bad, not bad, not bad
at all. So I think gets around the Nurburgring pretty quick,
as we heard. And you know, there's racing, There's there's
this aftermarket tuning that we want to talk about. There's
uh oh, there's something that I want to I still
want to hang on to it. It's kind of the
(43:35):
last thing I want to talk about. But man, Ben,
we're already at We're like forty five minutes into this thing,
and we still got more information to go on. I
want to talk about the technology as well. Maybe we
should do a part two. What do you think you
want to part two? This? Do it? Okay, guys, we
are going to make this a two parter episode, so
DJ Blitzkrieg just consider it one episode for each year
(43:59):
we to respond to this. Uh So we will be
back for our next episode on the Nissan gt R.
Stay tuned. In the meantime, you can find us on Facebook, Twitter,
our very own website, car Stuff Show dot com, and
send us an email directly. We are car stuff at
Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of
(44:21):
other topics, this is how stuff Works dot com. Let
us know what you think. Send an email to podcast
at how stuff Works dot com. M
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff works dot com. All right,
welcome to car Stuff. I'm Scott Benjamin and I'm Ben
Bowling Ben to get a topic today. That boy listener
suggested it a long, long time ago. So we're again
making good on a promise, right, but it's a promise
(00:23):
that the long time come. Yes, we didn't say a
we didn't cite an exact date, but DJ blitz Creek
on Twitter, you were kind enough to remind us that
two years ago you would asked us to do a
podcast on the Nissan gt R two years ago, two
years back. I would bet that there were several other
(00:44):
suggestions along the way that said, you know, in a
long laundry list of things like and the Nissan gt
R and something else since right, so you know, we've
probably put this one on the back burner for a
little too long. Maybe it's time to hit it, right,
Uh huh, yeah, I think we should just I'm in
and talk about what it is, why so many people
like it, how it compares to other cars I guess
(01:08):
and that are swinging in its weight class. And uh
then maybe some things that people might not know about
the Nissan GTO Yeah, and you know what, there's a
there's a lot of positive press about this car. I mean,
there's a lot that's that's really really good about this thing.
Don't get me wrong. At the very end of this
podcast that you want to bring up one thing that um,
someone cited as being a negative and this was an
(01:29):
eye opener for me. It really was something that I
had never heard of, something kind of new, a new
system as a matter of fact, and I think it'll
be surprising to a lot of our listeners. So hang
on for that one. But let's just dive right in
and talk about I've gone to the the Nissan site
and I've got some two thousand and fifteen information if
you want to hear it just quickly before we get
kind of into like, um, you know it's predecessor, and
(01:52):
you know where it came from, its heritage and all that.
But let's just get kind of the lay of the land.
I guess on this, how about that? Right on? All? Right?
So there are three cars to shoot is from. Actually,
if you're gonna buy a Nissan gt R, you've got
three options, and it really just comes down to, uh,
you know, editions I guess there's the Base Edition, which
if you can call it base, really it's it's called Premium,
which is I think smart on their part that they
(02:13):
call their base vehicle the premium vehicle. UM. That's that's
that retails that one hundred and one thousand, seven hundred
and seventy dollars. Now that's for the base Nissan gt R.
That's gone up significantly since uh man, i'd say, four
or five years ago, even when it seems to me
like it used to be priced right around the eighties,
it was like eighty one eight thousand something like that.
(02:35):
It's gone up significantly. But there's a lot of good
reasons for that, and we'll talk about those today. Then
there's the Black Edition, which is the kind of the
middle of the range uh UM GTR and that retails
for about a hundred and eleven thousand, five hundred dollars
and that's got some you knows on special features that
we'll talk about. And then there's the top dog, which
is the Track Edition, and that is one hundred and
(02:56):
fifteen thousand, seven hundred and ten dollars for the ms
R P and UM. You know a lot of them
have a lot of there's a lot of similarities between
all these cars, but there's also a few differences that
you know, incrementally allowed to be stepped up in price
by Nissan. Yeah, and uh, the reason that they've I
guess you could say, expanded this variety of things that
(03:17):
are still GTR but unique to their own uh, unique
to their own niche I guess in the car buying
world is that the GTR has become since the late
nineteen sixties, the g trs quickly become an iconic vehicle, said,
nine sixties. Huh, But as you know, uh, the very
(03:41):
first GTR was actually a Skyline, right, and so in
nineteen sixty nine, Nissan begins producing a high performance version
of its Skyline sedance and they call these the Nissan
Skyline g t R. UM. People love this thing from
(04:02):
from the moment it comes out. It's uh. People love
it on the road, they love it on the racetrack.
And although you're not gonna see a GTR badge Skyline
right now, Um, a lot of the what we could
call it's d n A comes from the Skyline. Oh definitely, yeah,
I mean I'm sure that uh, you know, people can
(04:23):
definitely see the the the intent behind the modern GTR
with what they had done with the previous g trs.
Now there previous GTRs, the Skyline GTRs, those are produced,
as you said, nineteen sixty nine until nineteen seventy four,
and then there's a gap in production and they didn't
produce the Skyline GTR um. I don't know about the
Skyline itself. I didn't even look into that. I apologize.
(04:45):
I think the Skyline was still around. Uh. Then they
brought back the GTR badged vehicles for nine through two
thousand two, right, just for a little bit. Yeah, just
for a little bit. And uh and then they said,
you know, let's take this away again and we're gonna
really really work kind of thing. We're gonna revamp it
and we're gonna bring it back out. I think they
had a concept vehicle in two thousand one that came out.
(05:07):
There was a I need to say something about the
concept vehicle. If no one's ever seen the two thousand
one concept vehicle from the Tokyo Motor Show, Yeah, two
thousand one Tokyo Motor Show, Motor Show. That the concept
vehicle looks nothing like the present day Skyline or I'm sorry,
not this kind of the the g t R, And
to me it looks at an awful lot like a
(05:28):
an Infinity G thirty five sport coupe. And I think
it almost looks exactly like that, only with a flatter,
taller front end, which is kind of surprising. But then
you think, like, okay, well, Infinity, this this does make
sense because Infinity is the luxury division of Nissan. So
they took that that prototype design, they said, well, that
kind of that body style kind of works for us.
(05:49):
It's more Infinity, they said, than it is exactly. And
then they came out with a second UM concept vehicle,
which was David a little later, exactly two thousand five,
and that the vehicle was much much closer to what
we see on the road today as the as the
Nissan gt R. Yeah, it was UM. They would say,
it's an extensive redesign. I would argue it may as
(06:11):
well be a different vehicle entirely UM and much closer
to the actual production GTR that we see on the road.
So the prototype of the concept that came out in
two thousand five, I think they said something like eight
of that vehicle would make it to the the street
vehicle right, which comes out in two thousand seven, at
least in the Japanese market. It's two thousand eight here
(06:34):
in the US. Uh. People people love it, people liked it. Um.
Let's see, it was also two thousand eight in Canada.
Didn't get to Europe till two thousand nine. Uh. But
they said the there's a reason for this uh staggered release. Um.
And it's an interesting reason which I did not know beforehand.
(06:56):
Nissan had to build performance centers in these markets to
UM service the car. Interesting, so they didn't have the
ability to do that up until the GTR was around. Well,
I guess not. And they also had they also had
a little bit of a bottleneck with production because the
engine and the gearbox are assembled by hand. Uh, so
(07:19):
around the world they can only make one thousand cars.
Amounth you know, I'm glad you mentioned the engines because
we do need to talk about the engines and these things.
And I'm shuffling notes that you may hear this, but
the the engines are put together one at a time
by one individual in a clean room situation. So UM.
Now it's it's pretty amazing the way this happens. Now
(07:39):
there's only eight people that are allowed the honor, they say,
of building GTR engines. So your engine, if you're in,
if you want a g t R, your engine was
built by one person in one room over of course.
I I don't know how long it is, maybe a day,
I'm not sure, but it's it's built in a dust free,
temperature controlled clean room situation where um, through all of
(08:00):
it's testing and everything there. It's it goes through something
like forty four minutes of bench testing, UM, and break
in where the engine is red line for ten solid
minutes and UM. And then finally you know, when the
whole thing is tested out okay, and everything's put into
the vehicle and then it's put through its taste, its
paces rather at a place called the uh tochig E
test track. So it's taken to a test track and
(08:22):
then and then run you know hard, I'm sure. But
each one is signed, and I don't know if you
can call it signed. I guess the badge is put
on the on the engine that says who built that
engine and where and all the all the of the
eight exactly who have the eight built your engine? So
it's it's it's pretty neat it's pretty neat thing. It's
very um um a personal touch to right, and it's
a high quality engine to the vehicles powered by a
(08:46):
VR thirty eight d E t t V six. Uh
so that is three point eight leader uh two thirty
one eight cubic inches. Uh, it's got some it's got
some interesting stuff there because it also has two parallel
turbo chargers that just come with the g t R.
(09:06):
And let's see, the engine output can vary depending on
the model. So um with the especially with the newer
ones between two thousand seven two thousand ten, UM, they
have some different claims for the rpm um between those years,
and that the rpm probably the horse power I've bet
(09:27):
uh yeah, horse power as well horse power and RPU okay, okay,
so maximum rpm all right, so yeah, I think around
two I've got numbers for about two thousand nine on
and my two thousand nine numbers say something like four
horse power and four thirty pound feet of torque, and
um stepping up to you know, two thousand fifteen, which
is where we are now, I guess the model year anyways,
(09:49):
five forty five horse power, and they've actually been at
five forty five since two thousand, but the zero to
sixty times are rapidly dropping. I mean they went from
three three and a half seconds in two thousand nine
down to two point seven seconds in two thousand fourteen,
and the two thousand fifteen numbers haven't been really released yet.
It's still kind of up in the air. And you know,
(10:10):
a lot of that is due to the change in materials,
because they've started using carbon fiber right um, exactly, and
the rear spoiler, the grill, the break ducts. You can
get a couple of extra carbon fiber goodies if you've
got the scratch, you know, let's talk about a few
of the different models here quickly. We can get back
to that, because I want to talk about the nerber
(10:31):
Ring and you know something, because you know it's tested there,
of course, you know, as every supercar is. Really Oh
that's another one quick thing. They say that it's not
a supercar. They call it the supercar, and that's kind
of their tagline for this whole thing. But I've got
a question for you, and it's just kind of a
little bit off track before we get into some of
these additions. And but when you look at the the
(10:51):
Nissan gt R I mean, it's a nice looking, you know,
sport coad high performance ve. Yeah, it's a great looking
sport coop. It's it's very very already you know you're
gonna love it. But does it look like a supercar? You? Okay,
it does not look like a supercar to me, but
it behaves like one. It behaves like one, and I
and I enjoy that that surprise kind of it reminds
(11:15):
me just a little bit of our sleeper car episode. Now,
I don't think it looks asleep enough. If if you
can say that, it's a it's a fast looking car,
but it's not like something low and wide and extremely
uh um, I don't know, swoopy. I guess with its
design or angular right, it looks like you could despite
the speed, it looks like you could use it as
(11:37):
a daily driver. It's not a typical European supercar, no,
not at all. It doesn't fit the stereotype. Now, it
really doesn't. It doesn't have like you know, the extremely
um well we've already talked about. I mean, it just
doesn't have the appearance of let's say McLaren or you
know that any Lamborghini type of right, and especially I
keep going back to that it rides a little higher
(11:58):
than those vehicles to sure, yeah, but I mean in
traffic though it does stand out. Though it's still absolutely
it still a gorgeous car. I mean, I see them
around here around town all the time, and they're really
really nice. And I've seen them at car shows and
things like that, you know, be able to kind of
look inside and see what they're all about. But I mean, honestly,
they're not anything overly flashy. I guess you know what,
(12:19):
flashy might be the best word, because I think we all,
we all tend to associate the name supercar, the term
with this sort of I don't want to say garish,
but very very much of a of a showy vehicle.
Right that The aesthetic is um is designed to turn heads,
and this car is a head turner, but it's not
(12:41):
outrageously so exactly exactly. So all right, so let's get
back into and you know, I kind of wonder what
our listeners are thinking about that. Yeah, maybe right in
and tell us what you think is the g TRS
look doesn't look like a supercar, yeah, exactly. And uh,
and so let's get back into some of these, uh,
the models, some of the features. I guess the models,
you know what what they come with, because you know,
for jump up in price of about ten thousand dollars
(13:03):
and then another one up another four thousand dollars, you
kind of wonder what you get for that, because all
of these have the same engine, the same transmission, the
same breaks. Uh, they get the same highway miles. You know,
it's twenty three rated, twenty three highway in sixteen city,
So that's all the same. Uh. There's a lot of
similarities between these cars. But where it breaks down really
is the is the the availability of some of these
(13:25):
I guess, the optional equipment that you add on to
this thing. Only they do it in packages so that
you buy it as an addition. So you get these
three different addition options. Plus there's other options that you
can add on to that, and we'll talk about those two. Um,
just at least just a few of them, because there's
so many of these things. UM. So if you go
up from the from the Premium version, you go up
to the up to the Black Edition. So the Premium
(13:45):
edition has a three point eight leader V six engine
which we mentioned, twin turbot horse powers something like that,
very strong it has a dual clutch, six speed transmission. Um,
it's got you know, twenty in wheels. Uh, some Embo
braking system. It's very very strong. Um. Then if you
go up to the Black Edition, you get everything in
(14:05):
the Premium features addition plus you get a dry carbon
fiber rear support, rear spoiler, you get twenty and special
dark finished type of wheels. You know, it's just a
different appearance package, I guess for that. And then you
get a different type of interior package, which is a
black red Ricardo front seat package that that comes along
with this whole thing, right, it's kind of a deluxe interior.
(14:27):
And then if you go to the Track Edition, you
get everything that's included in not only in the Premium
and the Black Edition. You get you get these additional features.
You get carbon fiber air and lets, you get a
track tune suspension which you don't get the others, and
you get a blue gray leather appointment front. You get
blue gray leather seats. They are appointed somehow in a
(14:48):
special way. I'm not sure exactly what that is, hand
hand stitched or whatever it is. And carbon fire. I
mentioned carbon fiber airon Let's already didn't they y, Yeah, Okay,
so you get a lot of different extras, and I
think the Track Edition also has a carbon fiber deck
lit a trunklet, which the other one doesn't have. But
it's painted so you don't even recognize it from the
outside if if you're not like touching and moving exactly.
(15:12):
But it's supposedly, you know, a much stronger, much stiffer,
lighter way. Of course you're savings. I forget how many
pounds they saves, but it's pretty significant. And uh, you know,
these packages, all of them you can add, well some
of me can, somebody you can't. You have to go
through Nissan's website and find out what's available, what's what's optional,
what's not available. But some of the things that I
can just point out real quickly, and the packages is
(15:33):
um They have a premium paint job that you can
get that's something like like three thousand dollars more than
any other the standard the Opal black, right, I think
it's a silver that i've there. There's a different type
of black that's also tell me about the silver one. Well,
the silver one has some kind of type of special
treatment in between. I think it's like a hand rub
polish that you know, it's um, it's several more steps
(15:57):
I guess to get the premium silver pain that that
they're talking about. And UM. Mostly there's also, of course
a red amber interior package, which is like another four
thousand dollars. There's UM, I guess a couple of those.
I think there's an Ivory Ivory leather interior package. There's
also a cold Weather package which is not available on
the Black Edition or the Track Edition, but only available
(16:20):
on the Premium edition. And that's a zero cost option,
which is kind of nice. You can get um, you know,
I think there's like a special fift mix that comes
along with that, and special tires that you get along
with you know, the wheel package that already comes on
the premium version, so you know, and and this is
just the tip of the iceberg, these these features and
selections and options on these things that it goes on
(16:42):
and on and on for I mean, it must have
been fifteen or sixteen pages that I printed out here
that I will not go through. I'm going to spare
the listeners all that, but there's other things, other other
parts that I'd like to go through if you want,
I mean, yes, but but first I have to ask
a questions and let us know what you think. Now,
speaking of letting people know what you think, Uh, Scott,
(17:05):
I gotta tell you, I've been reading some reviews for
the Nismo G t R. Yeah and um, and I
have to ask you, what do you think about that vehicle?
Let me tell you that is a fantastic vehicle. Now,
of course Nismo is uh you know, the Nissan's tuning division.
I guess I don't know how did it really say that?
(17:26):
Maybe that's the is that it's not your average What
I think what is important for us to say that
is a good way to say it. Um, the Nismo
G t R is not your average Nissan gt R, definitely. Um.
I just wanted to uh spend some time just talking
about this real quick as a sidebar. Um, all right,
(17:47):
so this is a this has a turbocharge three point
eight leader V six and uh there's some great reviews
about it. First off, it's incredibly power. Are full more
powerful than the standard gt are even more powerful than
the Track edition, right yeah yeah yeah, and uh they
(18:08):
some reviews I've read say that, uh it's in the
six horse power range. Uh, and they say that might
be a conservative. I've heard that too, but you'll see
it printed sometimes as low as five which again I
say as low as that come on horse power, very
very wheels. Yeah, I mean that the exactly that the
(18:29):
top numbers go well above six hundred, so you know,
it depends on where you're looking. And and lots of torque.
I mean it has an additional torque as well, right, yeah,
and it's got some some great stability to control systems.
That mean, UH is much more agile than you would expect, exactly,
and so agile that this is the one that they
(18:49):
take out for their testing at the Nurburgring. Uh. Yes,
And here we go because you know, as we've talked
about many many times, I don't mean to step on
you here. This is what it was built. But you know,
as of now, the nesmode UH Nissan gt R is
currently number four on the all time fastest Nurburgring lap
(19:09):
time I guess greatest hits you know, all time, and
that's with a time of seven minutes eight seconds, exactly
seven minutes eight seconds. I mean that's that that's incredibly fast.
I mean you can and the cool thing about the
spend you can go to Nurburgring lap times dot com.
I'll say it again, Nerburgring lap times dot com and
you can watch and have the list, you know, I
(19:31):
have the list of everybody in order how fast they
finishing of the number one all the way through number one,
and you know, the number one hundred gets bumped off occasionally,
so it's currently number four. And the cool thing is
that you can click this little uh, you know, a
little button over on the side that says watch lap
now or something like that. You can watch an in
car lap of that vehicle doing that doing that lap
(19:53):
of the Nrburgring at that time, so you know, like
the official lap and it's not available for all of them. However,
the g t R is one that you can watch
the full lap of, so you can watch the full
seven minutes and eight seconds if you want, and see
exactly how fast this thing does. I guess attack the
Nurburgring really because that's a good mean, it definitely attacks
the track. You won't believe how quick this thing is.
(20:15):
And although although I have heard people say before that um,
the lap time the Nurburgring is not is not necessarily
a benchmark that should be treated as important as we
do treat it. I have to say, man, it's it's
in my opinion, it is mandatory for a car of
(20:36):
this caliber to be on the Nurberg Ring. Definitely you
have to be if you want to be UM, if
you want to be considered as a peer group, you know,
and if you want to be taken seriously within that
group of or in that world that this thing revolves.
And I guess I don't know it's maybe the best
way to say that or not, but it's um. It's
(20:56):
it's kind of the sandbox that it plays in. It
needs to be able to to stand up and say like,
here's what we can do. You know, we're we're right
up there with you guys. Right, And speaking of that
kind of peer group and competition stuff, Uh, let's go
ahead and mentioned that the g t R s no
stranger to head to head comparisons, Right, We've seen that
(21:18):
the g t R go against the Porsche nine eleven
g T three the BMW M three. UM in both
cases it was uh, it was found to be the
faster one, the least that was in What was that
amazing for the Yeah, that's that's exactly where I'm going
because considering the price difference. That is just amazing. It is,
(21:41):
it really is. I mean, it's shocking to see that
it will compete with with the world leading cars like that. Now.
I mean I understand that it will, of course, you know,
based on everything that I've read about it recently, because
I've I've really done a thorough read through of of
what this thing has and I hope I'm conveying some
of this and we can't get to all of it obviously,
I'm gonna try to get to some of it today.
Want I also want to, uh, I also want to
(22:02):
say that, you know, towards the end here, I want
to talk about a little bit of aftermarket tuning before
we get to you know, that last thing, I guess,
but um, after market tuning. Let's say that for just
a bit, because there's some remarkable numbers being put up
by a particular aftermarket tuner that I want to tell
you about. UM kind of like the top end of
of what this thing is capable of at this point. UM,
(22:22):
So let's step through. Maybe let's step through the I guess,
the vehicle itself, you know, like the exterior, the interior,
some of the performance stuff. Maybe you know, some special
edition type stuff that we didn't get to some of of
the technology that's involved, because there's there's a little bit
of that that I think is fascinating as well. So
you know, if we get a little too long here,
we'll see what we have to do. Maybe. Okay, alright,
(22:43):
so x tray and I'll just try to laundry list
some of the stuff and make comments as I go.
How about that. Okay, I'll make some remarks to Okay, alright,
So for the exter and this comes from you know,
like the Nissan site, you know, like the brochure information.
So it sounds a little bit commercially, that's maybe why.
But we're gonna add some stuff along a little bits. Now.
It has what it has what they call a hybrid
(23:04):
body structure, which I thought was kind of neat, a
neat way to say it. I guess there's four different
types of materials used. They use high strength steel, die
cast aluminum, carbon fiber, and composite materials to build the
body of this thing. And it's not just that. It's
also built in a very precise way because they use
jigs a lot, like they do for um race cars.
When they put a tail the race car it's very
(23:25):
tight tolerance jigs that are used when they weld these
things together. Um. That allows them to create a very
precision build something. That's uh, not to say that you know,
your production car is any any less precise, but maybe
it's a little bit more tolerance and something like that
than what they would with a handbuilt vehicle like the
Nissan GTR. Right. And just to go ahead and outline
(23:46):
this point again, if anybody misheard that when they say
hybrid body, all they mean is that they're using different materials.
It's not it's not ment in any way to imply
that they are using He's of a hybrid beyond exactly
hybrid in the fact that you know it's it's steel
and carbon fiber and and composites and cast aluminum and
(24:08):
stuff like that, not not not all carbon steel, um,
which would be outlandiously heavy in this vehicle. Um. Oh
you know what, here's something about the exterior and the
hand polished finish that we mentioned. Oh yeah, it says
it's unique to the optional to the optional color Super Silver,
which is a paint color that you can select for
any of the models. I guess now there's an extensive
(24:29):
hand polishing that goes on between each coat, and it's
performed under three different light sources to reveal any imperfection.
So it's kind of like a an above and beyond
paint job. I guess if you're really into that type
of thing, and I know some people are, they'll pay
extra for a special color or special treatment because they
know what pays off in the long run. I guess.
I mean, I don't know. I don't I don't recognize
(24:49):
it myself, but I'm not an auto detail or anything
like that, so I know some people can spot it
right away. Yeah, it's an investment, and if you know
what you're looking for, it's apparent the one thing that
I totally forgot. I've got to jump back in time here,
if that's okay, jump back in time and people are
probably asking themselves, well, Scott and Ben, if this car
(25:10):
was so popular when it first came out in sixty nine,
then why did it go away and then it comes
and why did it come back? Um? Well, an interesting
thing that we have to note is that, um, when
Nissan first stopped making the gt R, they didn't say
it's because it wasn't selling. They said because emission standards
and the international oil crisis. We're compelling it. And you
(25:34):
know what one quick note on that as well, I'll
kind of you know, add on to that is that
they want to make sure that, um, and this is
important through all the literature I found out is that
I want to say that the current they call it
the new GTR, which is you know, what we're seeing
now on the road, is all new. It's not really
an evolution of the original machine at all. It's not
(25:55):
like you know, when they do these incremental design changes
and it's like, well, let's update this and we'll all
that the new g t R. It's not that way
at all. This is an all new vehicle that we're seeing.
So it's not like, you know, you can go back
to the two thousand two vehicles and say, well I
just see, like I see what they did here. They
just changed this and they called it a brand new
vehicle for two thousand eight or seven rather but an
(26:16):
all new vehicle with all new chassis code and everything.
I mean, I think they called the R thirty five
because it's called the c B a R thirty five
for the chassis code, and um, it's I guess there's
a naming convention that's carried on from previous GTR generations.
But that's about it. The R thirty five thing, but
that's that's really it. When it also gets the same
nickname as the early earlier generation cars. It was nicknamed
(26:39):
Godzilla by an Australian publication back in nine Wheels Yeah,
I think it was Wheels in in nine and that
name just kind of stuck around and they still continue
to call the car Godzilla, which is obviously it's comical
for you know, a Japanese company to be built in
a car called Godzilla. Ye, it's funny. So I mean
it sounds it sounds like the kind a joke that
(27:00):
Australian magazine would make another This is a description I
heard of the gt R and it's not so much
a well known nickname, but I've read reviews that said, uh,
the g t R may well be a giant killer.
They called it because it goes back to what we
said about um about price comparison with performance. So uh,
(27:25):
you know, it's no, it's no real secret that Nissan
is directly competing with some companies that they think may
have gotten too comfortable in this area, one of the
big ones being Porsche, sure, and so UM, whose cars
are sometimes a hundred and forty hundred and sixty dollars exactly,
(27:47):
and so UM. You know, for the Nismo in particular,
they would say the appropriate competition for it should be
Porsche's GT three, But you know, the g T three
is um probably not to put up too much of
a fight, right, So it has to instead the GTR
The Nismo at least is going up against the nine
(28:07):
eleven Turbo, which UM price difference wise is pretty profound,
pretty significant. Yeah, and um, you know, yeah, and that
kind of play that dovetails into the thing that I
want to talk about at the very end of the
All right, good, so everybody stay on that. We wanted
to go do exteriors interies. If that's okay, I've got
some more exterior type things, and then maybe we'll talk
(28:27):
about interior. Then we can move on from there and
see where we are time wise, because I think we're
running a little bit long here on this one. Aerodynamics. Aerodynamics,
because there's actually, you know, everything you see on the outside. Sure,
I understand that, you know it's very sleek looking. Um,
it's maybe not as conventional as you would think for supercar,
like we talked about, right, super sleek design and big
(28:47):
fins and everything, But the underbody aerodynamics are very very
important in this car and and it's really they say
that virtually the entire underbody is covered by composite panels.
They give it kind of a flat aerodynamics purpose that
works for the car in a certain way. And there's
two ways that underbody air flow works for it. Um.
At the front of the car, the flat underbody is
accelerating the air and channels it over the breaks and
(29:09):
and you know, cools them. It reports a way to
cool them down, which is fantastic, great way to do that.
At the back of the vehicle, there's a carbon fiber
diffuser that takes the accelerated air and slows it down,
which creates a vacuum effect that helps I guess the
GTR kind of stick to the road or to the
track or wherever it is. So we've heard that a
lot of cases with these cars with the diffusers that
you know, it creates this um um low pressure area
(29:32):
I guess, or a vacuum that that kind of sucks
the car down and forward really you know, allows it
to allows it to power through turns, a little faster
than a car wood that doesn't have underbody aerodynamics like this,
so significant in that way. Um, there's other cars that
do have it. I mean, I'm not saying it's the
only one that does, but um, it's very well handled
in the GTR, right, and part part of this design,
(29:54):
part of the reason that it doesn't look like a
European supercar more orthodox supercar rather is um completely intentional
on Nissan's part. Uh Nissan's chief creative officer, uh Shiro
Nakamura uh likened the new g TR to some anime
to Gundham really, you know, like a yeah, giant robot
(30:17):
Scott Right. Well, okay, here's the quotation. Specifically, Nokomura says,
the g t R is unique because it is not
simply a copy of a European design supercar. It has
to really reflect Japanese culture. So they're building what, you know,
what they're aiming to do is make a uniquely Japanese
answer to the European supercar, the car that makes a
(30:40):
cultural impact as well as a I guess a performance statement.
Spot on, Yeah, I mean for for both of those cases. Right,
all right, So let's let's let's keep going on here
with our Let's move to the interior, okay, and I
do want to talk about technology a little later, so
you know, let's just skip over this interior part. I'm
gonna mention is quickly what they say here on online,
okay about the interior, and because really it's pretty uh,
(31:01):
I mean, it's on on the surface stuff. I mean
it's it's leather treatments and stuff like. That's the leather
pointed seats, eight way power adjustable driver's seat, uh Star.
It has carbon fiber um and charcoal brush metal trim,
which is kind of cool. I mean carbon fiber trim,
I understand that, and lots of leather and stuff like that.
That's that's fine. I mean I understand all that. But
you know, that's not really the stuff that we usually
(31:21):
talk about on car stuff. We don't talk about the
cosmetic type stuff typically exactly. So let's talk about performance,
all right. So it has something called a what they
call the premium what we talked about the engine already,
but it does have something called the Premium midship platform,
and that is how the engine really sits within the chassis.
And this is unique to the gt R and that
(31:44):
um the midship platform. This is this is kind of unusual. Um,
it sits the engine is it's the front engine, although
it sits mostly behind the front axle, so it's it's
it's it's way way back in the chassis. If you
think about it that way, it's got a long longhood
you'll notice. And um, because it's a V six. The
way that the styling works is because it's a V
(32:05):
six instead of you know, like a big V eight
or V ten or twelve. Even Um, it allows the
interior to have you know, kind of the flexibility. I
guess it's not it's not such a long engine as
it would be if it's a ten or twelve. So
it's a six, and it allows them to push it
back further in the chassis. It gives it a crisper
turn in, you know, like a quicker steering response, and
(32:26):
overall balanced to the vehicle. So you know, Um, the
balance is really important. Balance is very important in this.
I mean it's I think, what's the balance for this vehicle.
It's like fifty three for all different versions of this car,
So it's very well balanced. It's almost fifty fifty. It's
pretty close. Um, but overall it's done for you know,
the way that this thing performs on the track and
(32:47):
on the street, of course, but um, I think that
you know the way that they've done this. This is
this premium midship platform. It's it's so unique, it's so
different to this vehicle. I think if anybody else has
tried it recently, I haven't heard about it. The one
of the closest comparison actually is the FM or front
midship stuff that Nissan did earlier with the two thousand
(33:09):
one Skyline. So the Premium midship is sort of the
version two point oh of that I see. So they've
they've worked so so this is kind of an in
house Nissan thing. I see. I see. Now we've already
talked about the engine and how it's how it's handbuilt
and corrected by one of these eight people that are
I know, it's it's amazing that you have the system
that they go through. I would. I mean that that
(33:31):
has to be one of the coolest job descriptions in Japan.
You know, you meet you meet a stranger, you're at
a restaurant, you at a bar, hit none people or something,
and then and then they say, oh, so what do
you do? You know, Oh, I, um, well, I'm one
of the only eight people in the world who has
my job. I build engine That would be fun. I
(33:55):
imagine how how good you would be at that job.
You could probably do it blindfolded at a certain point
that they would be because it would be so precise.
But I'm saying that, you know that after a while
you would be so skilled at that position and doing
what you do. Can you imagine how how valuable a
person you would be in that company at that point?
Now I have Now I'm starting to have this this
really strange picture of the engineers responsible for the engines, Scott.
(34:19):
I'm seeing them, you know, just like the old soldier
of fortune eighties movies. They're hanging upside down, blindfolded, assembling
and dissembling and reassembling like the military type. Yeah, yeah,
you know, and there's other manufacturers that do similar things.
You know that there's there's certain people that are allowed
to build the engines, and that's it. But this is
a very select, very very very small group. And it
(34:42):
just sounds like such a cool environment to work in.
And I know every time it comes up, I just
astounded by it and he sounds just another one of them. Um.
Let's see suspension, that's something we should probably talk about. Guess, um,
you know it's it's really nothing unusual. I mean it's
four wheel independent suspension wheel DRIL Oh yeah, all wheld, right,
So let's talk about the the all wheel drive system. Now,
(35:02):
there's a fifty torqu split between the front and rear
axles typically, but because it's electronically controlled, um, the system
can provide up to one of all available torque to
the rear wheels at any time. So you know this
is uh, it can it can actually feel like you're
driving a rear wheel drive car when it needs to
feel like it's when you're driving a real world drive car. UM.
(35:23):
So you know it can neither be front rear. Work
me up to at the rear if necessary, but it
will never go on at the front, so it won't
feel like a front wheel drive car. Ever. The most
it would feel is fifty I believe. I don't know
if that that can change. I shouldn't say most. Maybe
there's a maybe there's a given take there, but it
will never go full front. I don't believe. And here's
(35:44):
here's something interesting, Uh, there has been a little bit
of controversy around the g TRS top speed. Yes, you
know what I think you do? Yeah, I think I do. Right.
The the top speed that Nissan states is a hundred
(36:04):
ninety three miles per hour, right, Uh, and this again
is for the production Nissa, not the Nismo. And uh,
motor Trend however, got a top speed of just a
little bit higher. Again. Okay, Now I've seen a number
as high as one nine. Yes, but you know this,
(36:25):
and after you're done, Ben, I don't know if you right.
All right, Well, let me tell you this. We've we've
talked about the Nissan gt R in a couple of
different ways here, and I'll struggle to remember this. I
don't know if I can or not. But we talked
about the GPS system within this car, right, So this
goes into something This is dipping into the technology just
a little a little early, but something I need to
(36:45):
say right now now From an older post in about
two thousands and seven, I read online somewhere about the
GPS system in Japan and it's a little different than
it is here in the United States, and that um
in Japan, the gt R is electronically limited to a
top speed of about a hundred and eleven miles per hour. Now,
I remember this is again this is about six years
old now at this point, seven years older. But this
(37:07):
is the information that we had early on about the
GPS system. Now and it's only in Japan. So limited
to a top speed of a hundred eleven miles per
hour in Japan. But when when the car's GPS determines
the cars at a racetrack, the speed limitter is completely
removed from the vehicle. But I didn't realize that was
only in Japan now when we talked about that in
the past, we thought that was everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(37:28):
And that's interesting because we've also read some racing reviews
or some performance tests where the reviewers have said, or
even the people conducting the test have said, if the
engine wasn't limited, they would they would have expected some
different performance. However, at the same exact time when all
that was going on, the you know, Japan limited one
(37:50):
hundred eleven miles per hour. In the United States, there
was no similar GPS integration going on, so our top
speed here was limited to something like a hundred and
fifts six miles even then. So even back the even
way back then it was now for two thousand fifteen,
as we said, it's already bumped up to I think,
is what they said, or depends on who you you know,
(38:13):
who you read, I guess and find out, you know,
what their top speed that they achieved was. But man,
that's a dramatic increase. And you know, I just wanted
to kind of clear that up because I know in
some other episode of you know along the way, we
mentioned this, uh, this GPS thing, how it was uh
so clever that you can figure out you're on a
race track and allow that letter to completely be erased
from the vehicle of the programming and just let it
(38:35):
go all out. Still one of the coolest things. Um,
here's another thing I kind of want to talk about. Um,
when we see this variation in not just top speed times,
but also in zero to sixty, you've seen some variation
for their for that. Um, there's an interesting wrinkle here.
(38:56):
People have reported, just with the production model itself, Nobell
some whistles that this g t R can hit zero
to sixty in as little as three point two seconds
if you use something called launch control. Yes, now, this
is some interesting technology that's getting into the technology that
I want to get after after I talk about UM
and I agree, we'll get to that that that feature
(39:20):
is really really cool. So, uh, just two more quick
things on the on the performance aspects of this thing. UM.
We mentioned just briefly that it has a you know,
strong strong Brembo brakes. I guess it is something we've
probably purpised in four pist in rear calipers and I
mean just six piston in front calipers, so very very
strong system from from Brembo. UM. What I really need
(39:42):
to talk about here is the last thing for performance,
I guess is the dual clutch six speed transmission, and
it's it's a sequential dual clutch transmission that shifts extremely
quickly when it's in something called our mode, which again
we'll talk about in technology it's coming up I pro
with you. But when you're in this our mode UM,
(40:03):
there's a there's a like a gear pre selection process
that goes on UM electronically in the transmission as you're driving.
And it's that's the only way I can describe it
quickly without really getting into too much detail. There's there's
a lot to that, but it's it's pre selecting the
gears around the gear that you're in, so that it
can say I'm ready to go to this gear or
(40:23):
this gear, depends on what the driver does and the
trans the transmission can shift and get this spend just
point one five seconds, so that's I mean literally as
fast as you blink your eyes. I mean I think
you blink in like point one point one of a second.
This is point one five So just slightly slightly longer
than it takes for you to blink your eyes is
(40:44):
how fast it can shift gears. So you know, everybody
who says that, you know, I wish it had a
manual transmission that I could actually you know, get in
and feel myself kind of rowing through the gears. This
this is outdoing that in a way. I mean in
in a in a big way really as far as
how quickly it can shift. So I know you're pointing
the point the paddle shifters and making it happen, but
you're not actually you know, grabbing the stick and shifting
(41:06):
for a second third as you would in a lot
of other vehicles, because it doesn't that much quicker with
the paddle shifts. And we've seen that in other vehicles
as well, but I just figured I pointed out here
because uh, this this type of technology is you know,
kind of streamlining itself, and it's coming down to even
some of the uh, the more typical sedans that we
see on the road every day. It's not just the
(41:26):
g t R. It's coming to a lot of different vehicles. Now. Uh,
this this quick shifting technology and the multi gear transmissions,
you know, seven nine automatics, they're getting very very um advanced,
very complex, not that they weren't before, but they're they're
upping the game even more. Yeah, and that's starting to
trickle down some more of the more of the I
(41:47):
don't want to say low end, but more accessible cars,
every day cars, every day cars is a nice way
to say. It's Scott. Before we get to the big
performance news here, you know, I just want to laundry
list of the numerous awards that the GTR is one
sound because we didn't talk about it. I don't know
if what I don't think we'll really have time to
go into racing as much as we should either. But um, alright,
(42:10):
so since two thousand and seven, this vehicle has won
uh more than a Baker's dozens of awards, including numerous
selections for a Car of the Year two thousand seven,
two thousand eight. Um, it's also in oh, well, let's
see two thousand nine as well. Um, it's motor trend
Car the Year. Often it's the champion of the targets
(42:32):
has Mania two thousand nine and two thousand ten. Um
it's been listed as having one of the best resale
values of any sports car. So you won't be a
pauper just because you aimed to tangle with some Porsche's.
I see, that's a big fear of a lot of
people why they won't buy a sports car exactly. Yeah,
(42:53):
instant devaluation. Right, yeah, it's uh, you lose what is it,
you lose like five grand when you drive off the lot. Oh,
I think it's I think it's something like something like that.
It's a big, big number. Um all right. And then
one of the last ones I thought was really impressive.
Guinness Book of World Records in two thousand eleven rated
(43:15):
this the fastest he rode to sixty time for a
four seater production car. Not bad, not bad, not bad
at all. So I think gets around the Nurburgring pretty quick,
as we heard. And you know, there's racing, There's there's
this aftermarket tuning that we want to talk about. There's
uh oh, there's something that I want to I still
want to hang on to it. It's kind of the
(43:35):
last thing I want to talk about. But man, Ben,
we're already at We're like forty five minutes into this thing,
and we still got more information to go on. I
want to talk about the technology as well. Maybe we
should do a part two. What do you think you
want to part two? This? Do it? Okay, guys, we
are going to make this a two parter episode, so
DJ Blitzkrieg just consider it one episode for each year
(43:59):
we to respond to this. Uh So we will be
back for our next episode on the Nissan gt R.
Stay tuned. In the meantime, you can find us on Facebook, Twitter,
our very own website, car Stuff Show dot com, and
send us an email directly. We are car stuff at
Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of
(44:21):
other topics, this is how stuff Works dot com. Let
us know what you think. Send an email to podcast
at how stuff Works dot com. M
CarStuff News
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