(car racing)
(electronic tone)
- [Narrator] Godzilla enters its eighth year
following the same road its been on since the beginning.
Slow, but steady, and continual improvement.
For 2017, the Nismo still produces 600 horsepower.
Certain parts of the body kit have been given the once over,
like the grill which now sucks in more air
and the front splitter which produces
even more track coming down force.
The biggest obvious changes are to the interior,
while the biggest hidden changes are to the body
in white which is now much stiffer.
As a result, the spring shocks and sway bars
all had to be re-tuned to deal with
the Nismo's increased rigidity.
Lets see what Randy makes of it.
(car accelerating)
(car skidding)
(car accelerating)
- [Randy] It's quick, sure is quick out of the
slow corners of that all wheel drive.
Didn't quite get the breaking I
wanted in one and over ran it.
Try to get that better next lap.
(car accelerating)
I want more breaks.
(car accelerating)
Peddle's low already, damn.
(car accelerating)
- Nissan GTR Nismo, this is the most powerful
and the best handling in the Nissan GTR's.
It's perhaps just the race mode, but the throttle's
not linear and it was a real issue on the race track today.
All wheel drive or not, it suddenly makes the
car run wide and it's difficult to control that.
And the thing is, part throttle is giving me full power
and because the rest - I push further
and nothing more happens it's already there.
As wonderful as this car is, it won't stop.
It's not on the same level of breaking
as other cars in its category.
The GTR has been around a long time,
it has gotten better and better and better
and the Nismo is the best version.
I love it, it's my favorite.
But, it needs those two issues.
Gimmie a linear throttle and better breaks please.
- [Narrator] This is the quickest GTR we've ever
run around Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca,
beating the 2014 Nismo by half a second.
Still, Godzilla winds up in 11th place.
Two reasons why; The first being, that when the
motor trend editors drove the car on highway 198,
the steering was broken.
Apparently, GTRs have incredibly complicated
steering mechanisms and ours went kablooey.
Nissan claimed they had never seen
this particular problem before.
What can I say, we drive hard.
The second problem with the GTR, is that
this years competition was such a bumper crop
of great sports and super cars
that there are 10 we just liked better.
(car racing)