After what feels like an eternity, Nissan Australia has finally delivered the goods,
bringing to market one of the fastest cars that money can buy, the Nismo GT-R. Now, Mount
Panorama, Bathurst, seems like a fitting place for a first drive of this thing, and one where
we can answer the ultimate question, does it live up to the Godzilla pedigree?
There’s been plenty of hype and speculation around a pedal [? 00:00:26] version of the
R35 GT-R, and now it has landed in Nissan showrooms, the first of several anticipated
Nismo models set for Australia.
Okay, so down to the nitty-gritty.
You get 441 kW and 652 N-m to play with.
That’s 22 kW and 20 N-m over the donor car, and like the basic GT-R this thing features
a hand-built engine from Japan.
As for the price, you better sit down, $299,000.
That price positions the GT-R Nismo squarely among the Porsche 911 GT3, Mercedes AMG GTS,
and Jaguar F-type SVRs - big name super cars with plenty of performance.
To help leverage the Nismo from the garden variety GT-R, it scores high flow, larger-diameter
turbochargers, as found on the Nismo GT3 race car, tweaked shock springs, and stabilisers,
and a stiffer body.
Improved aerodynamics include added carbon fibre.
There are also Nismo-tuned Bilstein shock absorbers.
Now, the GT-R Nismo might be priced among those three, but out on the track it has its
own distinct feel.
For one, it weighs only 14 kg lighter than the donor car at a touch under 1,750 kg.
The power - it just has this no-nonsense demeanour.
Any time you want to stand on the throttle it just goes.
Officially, Nissan claims a 0 –100 time of 2.7 seconds in the Nismo, though, based
on our seat of the pants impression, you'd struggle to replicate that without perfect
conditions and a factory test driver.
In saying that it's the middling to upper revs where this thing is simply mesmerising.
It will happily just sing towards its 7,100 rpm cut-out and that's where a lot of the
power is coming to fruition.
The rest of the car also others borrows from the no nonsense handle [? 00:02:35].
The gearbox shifts are best left to manual mode, the steering feels raw, and purposeful,
and the car’s Dunlop rubber sticks to the road faithfully.
There's also less body roll than the donor car and the brakes stand-up to plenty of punishment.
All in all the Nismo is confidence inspiring on a track, despite its size and power.
In short few road cars could perform this well on the Mount Panorama circuit.
We also dared to take the Nismo away from the race track and, not surprisingly, there's
no hiding it's hard-core roots.
Yes, look, this thing is hard work away from the racetrack.
For one the gearbox is constantly shuffling and clunking its way through the ratios.
Another thing that's kind of annoying, I'm in sixth gear doing 60 km an hour, typical
sort of overtaking speed, I plant my right foot, and five, four, three, two… we're
finally away.
Inside there are 16 fewer buttons than the previous generation model, as well as a larger
eight inch touch-screen.
Suede trim adorns the top of the dashboard and contact points.
A virtually unusable rear seat resides at the rear.
Okay, so the big question, does the Nismo live up to the Godzilla pedigree?
Well, there's an exercise fraught with danger, but what I think I can safely say is that
this thing does elevate performance in every measurable way.
The biggest thing going against the GT-R Nismo is its price, and the other thing, ironically,
you're going to need a place like this to enjoy its full potential.