Post by Kasey Kagawa

If you read the forums of any given import tuner website, you’d think that the Nissan Skyline GT-R series is better than Porsche, Ferrari, Lotus, and girls, all bunched together. To be fair, any car that can crank out such high horsepower numbers with even the most simplistic of tunes is definitely something to be appreciated, but there is more to life than peak horsepower, like interior luxuries and not being pulled over by the police every other day.

However, even if you ignore the collective hard-on that twenty-something car enthusiasts get when they think about the Skyline GT-R series, there’s certainly enough history behind the series to earn it a place in the stars. From the 1970’s roots of the badge and its 50 wins in only three years of racing, to the constant destruction of Nordschleife lap records, to causing the downfall of FIA Group A and JTCC touring car racing through its sheer dominance of the entire race series, despite heavy-handed attempts at handicapping the car, the Skyline GT-R is a car that’s always stood for taking down the giants of the automotive performance world, and now they’re at it again. Inside Line’s team of intrepid spies followed a Nissan GT-R undergoing performance testing in New Mexico to Los Angeles, and now to Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, California (I know that it’s Infineon Raceway now, but I still call “Edison International Field” by Angels Stadium), just north of San Francisco, where it’s been doing some spirited laps with the new Porsche 911 Turbo. According to the stopwatches of the crack team of ex-CIA spooks that Edmunds employs, the GT-R lapped the track only a few tenths of a second off the pace of the 911, which is all the more amazing if you consider that the GT-R is projected to cost about half as much. If that pace turns out to be right, BMW, Audi, and Porsche should start watching their backs.

2009 Nissan Skyline GT-R at Sears Point: Video & Spy Photos [Edmunds Inside Line]