Nissan GT-R Nismo monster on wheels
Rumour has it that this may be among the last GT-Rs to roll officially out of the factory. Perhaps the last. It is a monstrous looking car. It is the Nissan GT-R Nismo.
That ought not to be a colossal surprise; the R35 GT-R has been on sale for 13 years now. Sure, Nissan updates it regularly, a series of model-year refreshes having eked up power, added tech and softened off the suspension to make GT-Rs sold in 2021 much better all-rounders than those which arrived fresh in 2008.
But the core product cannot help but look and feel a little bit old-hat when the Porsche 911 has been through three generations in those 13 years. And the Ferrari F430 has been replaced by the 458, 488 and F8 Tributo. Competition has been on the move whist Nissan has been twiddling.
The GT-R costs more than a Ferrari 488 with barely more than delivery mileage, or a new 911 Turbo S with every option going. A Nissan can never be a Ferrari or a Porsche.
The bonnet, roof and boot lid are all carbon fibre. Cars are getting light. It saves fuel and they have become faster in the process. The Bilstein suspension has been tuned to cut what little slack there already was in a GT-R chassis. And the regular twin turbochargers of that venerable 3,8-litre V6 have been swapped for those used in the Nismo GT3 racecar, for quicker responses.
The GT-R has an undeserved reputation of giving up its performance too easily. Rumours it “drives itself” are merely that. Extracting a bit of straight-line pace from one is not tough, of course, but keeping that pace up through corners asks for levels of shrewdness a 911 Turbo never has. Especially when Nissan’s engineers are slickening the tyres in the pursuit of perfection.
It may be an astonishing amount of money now, but it delivers an appropriately astonishing experience. In fact, I can think of no other car below a 488 Pista or Mc600LT that delivers quite this level of drama at such modest speeds.
It does so via the sort of behaviour that will put many people off — particularly on frosty roads. It feels like a racecar on an out lap for the first 10 minutes of your journey, all clunking diffs and snatchy grip, and if you have any mechanical sympathy you’ll call up every fluid temperature reading its central screen can muster and get the GT-R fully warmed up before pushing any harder.
The light, direct steering is truly delightful — one of the highlights of a car that is hardly lacking them — and it gives you a fine idea of how much grip is up front.
Which lets you concentrate appropriately on the back, which can be flighty when the road is moist and the ambient temperature low. Leave every mode in its softest and the traction control can snatch power away very crudely, but with cautiously loosened ESC this thing just flows fabulously.
Its fair heap of turbo lag — the engine does not truly light up until around 3 500rpm — means you can exit a corner perfectly serenely in a high gear. Or quite flamboyantly in a low one.
This is a finely balanced car where oversteer comes as a by-product of stern-faced cornering, not something you seek playfully like you might in a Pista. You barely have to correct the steering, the 4x4 drivetrain just clawing you forwards the whole time. It is exhilarating and truly addictive.
The GT-R probably catalysed the whole
“too-fast-for-the-road” performance car onslaught, giving Porsche a kick up the chin did not know it needed when Nissan shook up the establishment all those years ago. But the fact its updates and improvements since have all been incremental mean it now sits at the other end of the spectrum, one of the few cars in this echelon of performance that actually feels fast.
So sure, there is a heap of lag, but it only serves to ramp up the drama when those turbos do light up. The GT-R’s rough edges and gruff nature might objectively leave it lagging behind whatever McLaren is up to this month, but they imbue it with something you can actually get stuck into on the road.
Sections of the interior may be lagging behind, but in Nismo trim you get reams of Alcantara and a pair of superb carbonbacked Recaros to lift the mood. The sixspeed DCT gearbox is perhaps the biggest giveaway of the GT-Rs advancing years; its shifts feel a little ponderous by 2021 standards and the number of times I grabbed for a phantom seventh gear became embarrassing. But that does also betray just how delightfully short the ratios here are. You can use a fair chunk of second, third and fourth gear on the road without stomachchurning speeds appearing on its dot-matrix digital speedo.
Think of the Nismo GT-R as a sparring partner. It is on your side, but willing to jab you in the ribs to keep you alert. It does not envelop you in a warm embrace of friendly grip and flattering electronics like that F8 or 911 will, but that is not to say you are left floundering. You have to work for its performance and tell the car you are up for it by sticking it into its meaner modes.
But even when driven moderately, its unrelenting ride and the way its massive spoiler cleanly bisects your rear view mean you’ll never forget just how focused it is. Or, in cruder terms, that it is full of motorsport components and thus costs a shocking amount of money. If this is where the R35 GT-R story concludes, it is a heck of a final chapter.
Specifications
Engine: 3,8-litre twin-turbo V6; Power: 441kW;
Torque: 652Nm;
Transmission: Six-speed DCT, all-wheel drive;
0-100kph in 2,8secs;
Maximum Speed: 315kph; and Weight: 1 703kg.