The release of the 2009 Nissan GT-R in the U.S. could go down as the most significant moment in this country's history of sports car introductions. Well, maybe we're young and have a short memory. Nevertheless, new BMWs, Corvettes, Ferraris and Mustangs come along every few years, but this was different. The Nissan Skyline GT-R had been terrorizing the streets of Japan for decades. Later models like the R33 and R34 GT-Rs taunted Americans, gaining fame in video games (Gran Turismo), anime (Initial D), and movies (The Fast and the Furious). An all-wheel-drive, hyper-tech Nissan that could run with a Porsche 911 Turbo? And we didn't get one in America? It hardly seemed fair. Americans couldn't have it, so Americans wanted it bad.
As it turned out, the purchase of this GT-R from Alexander Nissan of Cool Springs in Franklin, Tennessee, was one of the easiest capital expenditures we've ever had to justify. We would have a 2009 Nissan GT-R, the hottest car of the times, on hand not only for real-world impressions and service reports (not to mention daily driving), but also we'd have the mighty 480-horsepower Nissan to test against whatever the automotive world might throw at us.
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