- Doors and Seats
2 doors, 4 seats
- Engine
3.8TT, 6 cyl.
- Engine Power
357kW, 588Nm
- Fuel
Petrol (98) 12.4L/100KM
- Manufacturer
4WD
- Transmission
Auto (DCT)
- Warranty
3 Yr, 100000 KMs
- Ancap Safety
NA
Exclusive Australian test: Nissan GT-R v Porsche 911 Turbo
Japan doesn't have many genuine supercars. Among them, the original Nissan GT-R was so quick it was dubbed Godzilla because it crushed all before it. It so dominated Australian motor racing in the early 1990s it was eventually banned - but not before rule makers tried to weigh it down with lead ballast. Even then the car was unstoppable.
It was the Nissan GT-R that so enraged Bathurst race fans they booed the winning drivers on the podium, prompting what has become one of the most famous quotes in Australian motor racing, from one of the sport's most gentlemanly figures, Jim Richards. He lost his cool publicly for the first time that day when he responded to the crowd with a blunt: "You're a pack of arseholes."
If the Bathurst bogans didn't like the V8-crushing ability of the old Nissan GT-R, heaven knows what they'd make of the new one.
Unfortunately, we won't see it compete in Australia's leading motor sport category - V8 Supercars - because the rules that banned the old Nissan GT-R are still in place.
However, you get the sense that Nissan has conquered bigger mountains since. After winning easily on Mount Panorama two years in a row (1991-92), and with countless other trophies from around the world in the cabinet, Nissan set its sights on a much bigger challenge: the most prestigious sports car maker on the planet, Porsche.
That is partly why the latest Nissan GT-R has been a long time coming. The fourth generation in the modern Nissan GT-R era has been in development since its predecessor was phased out in 2002.
Nissan teased enthusiasts with numerous show cars but the GT-R was put on the back burner as the company battled its way out of debt, then strove to make sure the new model lived up to the legend.
After thousands of hours of internet speculation and spy photos, the Nissan GT-R went on sale in Japan in September 2007. Within its first week on sale there, the new GT-R was sold out for more than six months.
The latest model is not due in Australian showrooms until mid-2009 but a couple of enthusiasts have beaten the company to the start line by importing brand-new examples for private sale to cashed-up customers.
Sydneysiders Ross Pendergast, a former engineering student, and Andrew Troha, a former butcher, placed their GT-R orders on the very day Nissan dealers in Japan were allowed to start taking deposits.
The close friends and colleagues have turned their passion for cars into a business over the past five years, specialising in importing hard-to-get performance cars from Japan.
The bread-and-butter of their business, International Motor Group, is mostly second-hand models, which sell for between $30,000 and $60,000. Bringing in a batch of brand-new Nissan GT-Rs is the most ambitious project they've undertaken.
The cars were brought in under the New Low Volume Import Scheme, which limits each compliance holder to 25 cars a year.
Incredibly, despite the $160,000-plus price tag, Pendergast and Troha expect to sell their allocation of 25 cars by the end of this year. And that was simply by word of mouth. Some customers, such as Sydney businessman Carl Ronning, are up to their fifth Nissan GT-R. And Ronning is already on his second new GT-R, after selling his first one to a mate who also got the bug.
"Mate, I just love them," he says. "There's nothing else like it on the road and they are just an awesome motor car. This is by far the best GT-R Nissan has ever built. I couldn't wait for Nissan to get them here. I just had to have it straight away."
Ronning's GT-R, also in steel grey, the same as the one in our photos, was among the first road-registered examples in Sydney. "It dead-set stops traffic," he says. "People drive alongside you with camera phones, they can't believe their eyes." The GT-R is a star of the PlayStation generation. You could test drive the new model on a special version of the cult GranTurismo game years before the real deal existed.
Pendergast and Troha are allowed to import another 25 GT-Rs next year but the permit is revoked as soon as Nissan Australia gets government compliance for the car.
Customers make some sacrifices for getting the GT-R before Nissan imports it. Some of the labels on the cabin switches are in Japanese, and Pendergast and Troha fit a radio locally. They provide a 12-month or 20,000km warranty for the GT-R; models imported by Nissan are likely to be covered by the maker's three-year/100,000km warranty.
Nevertheless, Pendergast and Troha have had to meet strict requirements to gain approval to import the GT-R as a new rather than a used car.
They have had to engineer changes to the GT-R to meet local emissions standards, modify the headlights to suit local guidelines and, unique to Australia, fit two child-restraint anchor points.
"A lot of people think we're making a lot of money out of this but, really, it's a labour of love," Troha says. "By the time we cover the compliance costs we'll be lucky to break even. But we don't care, we just love the car."
Pendergast says: "If we were looking at pure profit, we wouldn't have done a GT-R. We can't sell that many before Nissan brings it in [then] that's it."
So, what's all the fuss about?
For starters, the new Nissan GT-R is claimed to perform on par with - or better than - a Porsche 911 Turbo, for half the price.
To put it to the test, we brought along a $330,000-plus Porsche to meet the $160,000-plus GT-R. It is, to our knowledge, the first meeting of these two hero cars on local soil.
The Porsche 911 Turbo is one of the most highly regarded supercars on the planet; it was in Nissan's sights from the very beginning of the GT-R's development.
Their common traits are twin turbo power, all-wheel-drive and six-speed manual transmissions. The power output of both cars is identical, too, but there the similarities end.
The Porsche has more torque than the Nissan GT-R and its body is lighter so, in theory at least, the 911 Turbo should be quicker.
However, according to Nissan's claim, the GT-R is faster in the 0-100kmh dash - and around the famous Nurburgring in Germany, a 20km road racing circuit.
Both are rapid in the extreme but they deliver their power differently. The GT-R's power surge is more seamless, in part because it has more weight to shift. The GT-R is about 150 kilograms heavier than the Porsche.
The Nissan's twin turbo 3.8-litre V6 has a high-tech growl and the intensity of the acceleration builds as the revs rise. In comparison, the 911 Turbo's power comes on like a lightswitch. With most of its weight over the rear wheels (the engine is in the tail), the Porsche almost feels as if it's picking the front wheels up off the deck. But as soon as you need to change gears, the Porsche loses crucial time.
Herein lies the secret to the GT-R's performance. The Nissan has a computer-controlled twin-clutch manual gearbox, the turbo Porsche still has a regular six-speed.
The Nissan's race-like gearbox means that it can shift gears in a fraction of the time and not lose turbo boost. On a circuit such as the Nurburgring, where there are more than 40 gearchanges, those fractions of seconds add up to a decent margin.
According to times supplied by the makers, the 911 Turbo laps the German track in 7 minutes and 40 seconds and, when tested in September 2007 on slightly damp tarmac (which diminishes grip), the GT-R took two seconds less.
However, in April Nissan claimed the chief test driver of the GT-R, Tochio Suzuki, clocked 7 minutes and 29 seconds on a dry circuit.
These numbers may mean nothing to those with a passing interest in cars but enthusiasts recite them the way football fans recall scores from grand finals of yesteryear.
The Nissan's trick gearbox also delivers an advantage in the sprint to 100kmh.
From rest, the Nissan GT-R has a slight amount of shudder but once on the move the gearshifts are smoother than even in the new BMW M3 that we tested recently.
Tellingly, the automatic version of the turbo Porsche is slightly quicker than the manual, because the turbo comes off the boil between gear changes on the stick-shift.
Unsurprisingly, both cars emit a fair amount of road roar, thanks to their grippy tyres and, presumably, a lack of sound deadening to save weight. But the GT-R's suspension wasn't as bumpy as we were expecting, made all the more comfortable thanks to three settings (normal, comfort and a track mode).
So, which would I choose? If only I had the choice.
The Nissan GT-R looks stunning and almost makes the Porsche look plain. But the 911 Turbo has both a level of refinement and an edge to it that still make it special.
Porsche is working on an updated 911 Turbo with a computer-controlled twin-clutch manual gearbox - as released in the updated Porsche 911 range - that will put it on an even footing with the Nissan. And the Germans are also working on more mumbo for their engine.
So, while the GT-R may have the numbers on the board for now, the situation could well be reversed in about a year.
That, then, leaves the small matter of the rather large price difference.