Motoring: Flat out awesome

A careful driver is one who has just spotted a speed camera. Then there are those behind the wheel of a Nissan GT-R.

“Godzilla”, as it is known, has had a steroid lift and can now eat your licence even faster. The beast that swallowed Bathurst now does 0-100km/h in 3 secs flat, making it almost one second faster on the sprint to 100km/h than the 2009 model.

That’s plain awesome and it’s all because the Nissan GT-R’s chief developer, Kazutoshi Mizuno, has a philosophy of constant improvement.

“I wanted to make a supercar that would perform in all conditions and would be driveable by all enthusiasts, not just professional drivers,” he says. “The GT-R is for anyone, any time, anywhere.”

He obviously has a sense of humour, or he hasn’t tried to parallel park the thing, which is like attending a Labor Party conference – there’s a lot of grunting and swearing and the end result is half-arsed.

Come to think of it, he really hasn’t seen some of our roads either, has he.

But what’s it like behind the wheel? Imagine strapping 20 angry bears to the front of a go-kart, taking them to the top of a steep hill and poking them with a sharp stick.

It’s exciting, to say the least.

The acceleration is so ferocious, it’s like having a big hand push your body back into the seat. It is so fast and sticks to the road so well, it’s mind-blowing.

The third incarnation of the R35 has a 3.8-litre V6 twin turbo engine hand built by a single craftsman in a “clean room”. Power has been boosted 33kW to 390kW (530hp), while its torque has risen 24Nm to 612Nm in the 3200-6000rpm power band.

Getting the rubber on the road is a six-speed dual clutch transmission and permanent all-wheel drive.

Speaking of rubber, it is shod with Dunlop tyres specifically designed for the car that are filled with nitrogen rather than air to prevent pressure changes during high-speed driving.

You often hear cars being described as being able to corner like they are on rails but you really don’t get a true appreciation of that until you drive the GT-R. It’s neck-snappingly phenomenal.

Bringing it all to a stop in an eye-popping rush are six-piston Brembo calipers mounted at three points on the front to stop distortion during hard braking and four-piston calipers on the back. Though it has a street car livery, the GT-R is still a race car.

Part of the new model is a focus on weight reduction, which has been achieved with extensive aluminium panelling plus little touches such as new wheels that save 3kg and a plasma coating in the cylinders instead of sleeves that saves another 3kg.

There is talk that Nissan will produce one last GT-R in the R35 series next year that will be even lighter and even faster, perhaps shedding as much as 32kg and increasing the power to more than 400kW. That surely would produce a sub-three second 0-100km/h time.

But what comes with all that power and aggression is that it is a physically tiring car to drive. You need to concentrate harder because it can get away from you literally in the blink of an eye and the suspension is hard and makes trips around suburban streets fairly jarring, though you can switch it to “comfort” for some relief.

That’s not to take away from the comfortable Recaro racing seats and the beautiful Bose sound system and all the other top-end touches in the cabin.

One of the most entertaining features for anyone with the slightest interest in what the car is doing is the touch screen readouts of everything from turbo boost to cornering, acceleration and braking G forces in a format created by the designers of the video game Gran Turismo. It can make you feel more connected with what’s causing all the noise and excitement.

That a supercar has four seats and a boot is a bonus. Other manufacturers don’t even bother with such mundane stuff but for Mizuno’s “average” driver, it’s a blessing.

The GT-R earned its nickname after becoming the first Japanese car to win the Bathurst 1000 (which it did twice) and forcing race organisers top change the rules to stop it winning any more.

For a dose of reality, the GT-R has much the same specs as the Porsche 911 Turbo S, with almost identical performance stats but where they differ is the price. The GT-R sells for $168,800 plus on-road costs, while the Porsche is $423,300.

This is the people’s supercar.

What a beast.

BRW

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