Post by Kasey Kagawa

It just turned into a bad day to be a German car manufacturer. 7tune.com has transcribed an article from Holiday Auto, a Japanese auto magazine, that reveals the full extent of the curb-stomping that Nissan is about to deliver to Porsche, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi. Finding that their VK45 V8 was too pedestrian for the new GT-R, they instead lopped two cylinders off of the VRH35L Le Mans V8 and added two turbochargers that are built into the exhaust manifolds, like human beings in an Alien nest. This apparently gives them extra stability, weight saving and quickens the response, as well as making it next to impossible to modify the turbochargers. The engine was also touched by the tuning gods of Cosworth, who bequeathed an aluminum monoblock design and lightened various parts of the engine to make it rev harder and faster. All of this mechanical goodness means that the engine puts out about 473 HP at 6800 RPM and 419 lb-ft between 1700 and 5600 RPM, which puts it almost dead even with the Porsche 911 Turbo and blows the RS4, the C63 AMG and the M3 away. The 911 Turbo makes 480 HP at 6000 RPM and 460 lb-ft between 1950 and 5000 RPM. They both turn in identical 0-60 times of 3.9 seconds however. This differs from the official figures on the Porsche US website, but I don’t know if there are any changes between the US and the Japanese versions of the 911 Turbo. Also, I wonder how understated the Nissan figures are, since the R32-34 GT-Rs were famous for understating their horsepower outputs.

Even if the 0-60 numbers are slightly inflated for the GT-R, that’s still damn-near Porsche 911 Turbo beating performance in a package with an even smarter AWD system and looks that don’t originate from the 1970’s for half the price. That’s right. The current base price of a 911 Turbo (and let’s face it, no one buys a base Turbo) is $126,200, while the Japanese price when converted from yen is about $69,000, and judging by the price comparisons on the 7tune.com article, that number’s larger than it will most likely be over here. So the GT-R looks better and has them beat on the HP/dollar ratio. Now all that remains to be seen is if it drives as good as it looks.

VR38VETT Confirmed by Holiday Auto [7tune.com]