Nissan’s mad scientists grow a bluntly boffo GT-R

Published: May 18, 2013 9:43 a.m. ET




From the pages of Horticulture magazine: Paris japonica holds the current record for the organism with the most massive DNA molecule, a whopping 152.3 picograms, compared with Homo sapiens’s genome weight of a mere 3 pg. That’s right: This houseplant from the Japanese woodlands is more genetically interesting than you.

An organism’s complexity and its genome weight—its C-value—seem uncorrelated, but research goes on. Perhaps Paris japonica has a vastly complex inner life we’re not aware of. Maybe she sees herself dancing out by the airport.

Dan Neil/The Wall Street Journal
Nissan's GT-R was among the first, if not the first, of the supersport cyborgs, cars with multimode, fully algorithm-based handling, and powertrain and dynamics control pumped through a fantastically dialed-in all-wheel-drive system.

So there I was toiling away in the garden when I happened upon an analogue between Paris japonica and another flower of the Orient, the Nissan GT-R. There’s just a staggering amount of code invested in Nissan’s legendary supercoupe (545 horsepower, 3,829 pounds, 196 miles per hour, zero to 60 mph under 3 seconds). It was among the first, if not the first, of the supersport cyborgs, cars with multimode, fully algorithm-based handling, and powertrain and dynamics control pumped through a fantastically dialed-in all-wheel-drive system. Let’s count them off: Porsche 911 Carrera Turbo S, Audi R8 GT, Lamborghini Gallardo, Bugatti Veyron.

The GT-R was Big Data before it was cool.

The difference—besides the GT-R’s jaw-dropping price advantage—is that those other (great) cars lack mechanical intensity, not at high speed but at low speed. They are designed to be livable, survivable and tractable in everyday driving. They are, after all, luxury products. The Bugatti is an absolutely phenomenal sports car that feels like a 95-octane sewing machine when you drive it around town.

Not so the GT-R. The vibe of this car is simple, blunt, primitive, deeply mechanical, highly stressed, occasionally argumentative, wide-awake. This thing is a four-wheeled Ducati with a decent windscreen. My God, can there be a higher compliment?

Supercar at a not-so-super price

The GT-R is a raw, roaring supercar fit to compete with any Lamborghini, Porsche or Ferrar, so don't hold its Nissan badge against it says Dan Neil.

When you press the GT-R’s Start button, pumps and lubrication circuits come noisily to life, the forged crank twirls and the aluminum pistons of the 3.8-liter twin-turbo V6 pick up the rhythm. The engine—built by a single master craftsman whose name is etched onto a plaque on the engine shroud—falls into an idle like kettledrums at a strip club. When you slip the stubby gear selector (an electric switch, actually), you can hear and feel satisfying mechanical clunks and shudders coming from the six-speed, dual-clutch transaxle, signaling that the fuse is lit. Gear whine, brake chirr, driveline snatch. The turbos trill like a dentist’s hand piece. When you make a tight parking-lot turn, the front wheels scrub hilariously. Actually, most of the time the cabin ambience resembles that of a busy machine shop.

The point is, the GT-R’s rawness is deliberate, an artistic choice. If the GT-R’s engineers had wanted to silence all these rude noises, they certainly could have. It wasn’t for want of budget. The GT-R—heir to the Skyline 2000 GT, the near-mythic sports coupe sold in Japan since the 1970s—is the global image tent pole for Nissan NSANY, +0.05% 7201, +1.64%  and its development budget is likely well padded by the boys in marketing.

As evidence of Nissan’s seeming agnosticism regarding profit, consider the GT-R’s improbable base price of $99,590 for the GT-R Premium. Pricing on low-volume imported sports cars is always mysterious, and there’s no easy way to calculate the ROI on the GT-R. But speaking as someone who routinely cycles through fantasy sports cars and takes note of their prices, I’d say the GT-R is underpriced in the U.S. by about $50,000.

There’s also a GT-R Black edition ($109,330), with murdered-out 20-inch rims and a naked carbon-fiber spoiler, because, yeah, I’m a Sith lord. New for 2014 is the GT-R Track package ($115,710), with a yet-firmer spring-and-shock setup and some slotlike, carbon-fiber brake ducts in the chin spoiler. Everything on that car, from the gold-anodized monoblock Brembo BRBOF, +0.00% brake calipers to the nitrogen in the tires, just rocks so hard-core.

Let’s enjoy some numbers, shall we? At the heart of the GT-R is the VR38DETT, a 3.8-liter, aluminum and magnesium V6 with twin turbos outputting 545 hp* and 463 pound-feet of torque between 3,200 and 5,800 rpm. These are large figures, but they don’t really capture the range and responsiveness of the engine. At nearly any speed, and in any gear, you jab the throttle and this engine busts through the door like Kramer. It’s thick with torque at the low engine speeds, thunderously powerful near its 7,000-rpm redline and full of gristle and muscle everywhere else. The mid-rpm, on-the-boil exhaust note is sharp, blatty and delinquent.

The Track package, shod with barely legal, 20-inch, nitrogen-filled Dunlops, scores an 11 flat in the quarter-mile, results that put the Nissan GT-R squarely in Bugatti Veyron territory.

As for the asterisk: It’s an open secret that Nissan understates the GT-R’s horsepower ratings, but by how much, estimates vary. It feels like a car with 600 hp, but the official number, again, is 545 hp. On factory rubber, the GT-R bolts to 60 mph in 2.7 seconds, says the factory. The Track package, shod with barely legal, 20-inch, nitrogen-filled Dunlops, scores an 11 flat in the quarter-mile, results that put the Nissan GT-R squarely in Bugatti Veyron territory.

If that’s not enough, there’s a whole industry of Dr. Dementos out there who will be happy to turn up the wick to 700 hp, or even 1,000. This may adversely affect your warranty, to say nothing of your hearing.

At the other end of the GT-R’s carbon-fiber drive shaft is the six-speed, dual-clutch, rear-mounted transaxle with mechanical limited-slip differential and the all-wheel-drive cogs, all nested in the same housing. The GT-R powertrain is rear-biased, with 100% of engine torque directed at the rear wheels unless and until the rear slips, at which point the car’s AWD system, after a hurried consultation with the traction and yaw sensors and the stability control, routes corrective torque to the front wheels.

The GT-R offers three mode settings for the powertrain, suspension and vehicle dynamics (stability/traction intervention), which gives the car a wide range of adjustability; but given the breadth of the car’s performance on the street, in Comfort mode, these switches might as well be Christmas lights in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. Just decoration.

The GT-R is always an interesting car to drive. Because it first came to global prominence by way of a videogame, “Gran Turismo,” its fan base skews quite a bit younger than other sports cars’. I have spent many long minutes waiting in parking lots while kids took pictures of themselves with the car. For enthusiasts under 35, this is what fast looks like.

If, somehow, this car doesn’t do it for you, chances are you’re already into your prime gardening years.

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