When we say something about the Nissan GT-R, we usually mention something about its age these days. But this time around, we’re here to commemorate a special day for Nissan’s halo performance car. If you’re reading this on September 26, it’s a significant date for the GT-R.
That’s because it was the date Nissan announced the (then) new generation of the GT-R on September 26, 2007. Looking back, it was a massive deal, mainly because it was so revolutionary. How so? Read on.
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Before the R35 GT-R was released, the Skyline GT-R had been out of the market for about four years. The R34 Skyline GT-R bowed out in 2002 but was revived in 2003 briefly with its swan song, the Z-Tune. The Z-Tune was built in extremely limited numbers of just 19 units with a pair of prototypes included.
Of course, Nissan didn’t want to kill off the GT-R name right there and then. The brand reassured its biggest fans that it will return as it was previewed in concept form in 2001. But then came the shocker, the GT-R would be spun off the Skyline brand. It’s one of the reasons why the R35 was a huge deal at the time.
It took Nissan six years to bring the concept model into production, and the car made headlines in the motoring world. Nissan went all out with the R35, throwing out most of the Japanese automakers’ self-imposed ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ not to go over 276hp. The RB26 inline-six was gone, replaced by a meaty 3.8-liter, twin-turbo V6 that blew past the 276hp ‘agreement’.
How much power, you ask? The first-release GT-Rs punched out 473hp and 588Nm of torque. The day it was announced, the GT-R had become Japan’s most powerful production sports car overnight. None of its contemporaries even came close to matching those numbers. It also had proper supercar-baiting performance figures.
The 0 to 100kph sprint was dispatched in just 3.5 seconds, making it as fast as Italian exotica at the time. It can also go around the bends faster than most European thoroughbreds thanks to its most advanced form of the ATTESA all-wheel drive system. And just to rub it in, the original GT-R lapped the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 7:29.03, beating the Porsche 911 GT2 by around two seconds. Unsurprisingly, Porsche wasn’t happy about that.
16 years on, the GT-R still has the ability to shock and awe. The 2024 model now packs nearly 600hp and heaps more torque than the 2007 model. Nissan has also made it harder, faster, and even stronger than ever. It may not be the newest sports car in the block, but it’s still a car you need to experience to know that it’s far from going soft.
