The last time Nissan did a GT-R, it was based on the old two-door Skyline saloon. The company couldn’t do that this time round because the current Skyline saloon is too ghastly. So instead, a small team, in a hermetically sealed factory, set to work on a ground-up, handmade machine that would take the laws of physics and simply break them in half.
The attention to detail has been extraordinary. For instance, the GT-R’s tyres are filled with nitrogen because ordinary air expands and contracts too much. And each gearbox is specifically mated to each handmade engine.
It goes on. Japanese car companies rarely buy equipment from the round eyes. They always feel they can do better themselves. On the GT-R, though, you’ll find Brembo brakes. You’ll find a chassis that was developed initially by Lotus. You’ll find the best that Europe can offer mated to a computer control system that could only be Japanese.
On the road, then, this £53,000 car – with its rear-mounted double-clutch gearbox and its handmade 3.8 litre twin turbo motor and its infinitely variable four-wheel-drive system – is quite simply, how can I put this . . . very underwhelming. The noise it makes is normal. The ride is normal. The steering is normal. You can adjust all the settings as much as you like but it’ll make no difference. It still feels like a big Sunny.
It’s not pretty either. I know every shape and every crease serves an aerodynamic purpose but it’s like free-form poetry. It’s like it was conceived by Bartok.
Annoyed that Nissan could have lost the plot so badly, I drove it a bit harder. And then a bit harder still. And still it refused to reveal its hand. It was like driving a car that had fallen asleep. Like there was nothing that me, a mere human being, could do that would cause it to break into a sweat.
There were no clues that I was driving something that could lap the Nürburgring faster than a Koenigsegg or a McLaren Mercedes. That I was in a car that can stop just as fast as a much lighter, ceramic-braked Porsche 911 Turbo.
Even when I found a mountain road and went berserk, the GT-R remained utterly composed, absolutely planted. Occasionally, you’d catch a faint whistle from the turbos or maybe there’d be a little chaffinchy chirrup from the semi-slick tyres. But that was it. There was absolutely no drama at all. No sense that I was in something incredible. And the brakes, even after I’d pummelled them for half a day, were still ice cold and sharp.
This, then, is an extraordinary car, quite unlike anything I’ve driven before. You might expect it, with all its yaw sensors and its G readout on the dash, to feel like a laptop. Or you might expect, with all that heavy engineering, for it to feel like a road-going racer. But it is neither of these things. It certainly doesn’t feel like it could do a 7.29minute lap of the Ring. Even though I’ve seen a film of it doing just that.
I dare say that if Michael Schumacher were to find himself in the eye of an Arctic blizzard, escaping from an exploding volcano, he might discover 10% of this car’s abilities. But you? Me? Here? Forget it.
Nissan, then, has done something odd. It has built a car for a time and a place and a species that simply don’t exist.
Vital statistics
Model Nissan GT-R
Engine 3799cc, six cylinders
Power 473bhp @ 6400rpm
Torque 430 lb ft @ 3200rpm
Transmission Six-speed automated manual
Fuel CO2 23.2mpg (combined cycle) n/a
Acceleration 0-60mph: 3.5sec
Top speed 193mph
Price £52,900
Road tax band n/a
On sale Order now, delivery from March 09
Verdict Unfathomably good
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