Well said…

Credit for this impressive stick goes to the new generation Viper s stiffer frame, improved suspension geometry and the staggered- sized, Michelin Pilot performance tires. [ Read More]…

a new TSX will ring you for about 30 grand even. a fully-loaded V6 accord will ring you for about the same. which would you rather have? the 4-cylinder, smaller car, or the 6-cylinder larger car - features being mostly equal.

of the Japanese luxury brands, it would seem Acura is the one that hasn’t quite got things sorted. i seem to recall a recent web article saying that the brand perception of Acura was horrid - like dead last in a list - despite the reliability cache of a honda. why? i think Acura hasn’t done a good enough job of differentiating its products as you hint at, except in the window sticker department. sure, the acura costs more, but what are you getting for that extra money? it appears most buyers are seeming to figure this one out.

nevermind the fact that recent Lexus ES’s were nothing but rebadged Camry’s, at least the marketing people had established what “Lexus” meant in the public’s mind. it would seem that people don’t know what “Acura” means anymore, other than an upside down “honda” badge.

and JACK: i have another theory for you - in the absence of muscle, people needed SOMEthing to latch onto in their cars. the paradigm shifted from muscle to luxury, much like recently how the paradigm has shifted from SUV to environmentally smug. in the words of SNL’s Coffee Talk lady: “discuss.”

This is the early-21st-century Acura NSX, and I assume we all remember where that sweetie went. Orthodontist Land.

Though, I think you’re all missing one thing — holy hell the GT-R is ugly! Granted, I haven’t seen one in person as of yet, but I can’t see it getting drastically better than the hundreds of photos I’ve seen in my five or so major car mag subscriptions. It might be the ugliest sports car (or grand touring? can’t quite recall the configuration of that monstrosity at the moment) in recent history. I’ve been hopelessly obsessed with cars since I was two years old - porsche was one of my first words. To be sure, I might be biased - I love porsches and corvettes deeply, having stared at posters of the aforementioned cars every night before drifting off to dream about someday blasting around the ‘ring in anything I can get my hands on… whether that be a C4 ZR1, a GT3, some random 80’s 911 SC or whatever. But let’s be real for a moment: all of those cars are absolutely soul-stirring. Just looking at the car pulls you into the driver’s seat and dares you to fire it up and mash the accelerator down some back road. The GT-R will never do that for me. I couldn’t give less of a damn if it costs half of the price a new base-model 911.

At any rate, I’m not in any way convinced that it will be faster around a track than a Z06 — that thing is just plain unholy - especially with some stickier rubber.

Nissan clearly won’t be able to continue producing this car for just the reasons mentioned above. The 350 will easily be the next SLK/Z3 in terms of attempted manliness — it’s about to be Nissan’s official chick-car (my apologies to fellows above that own them… but I don’t quite understand that decision either… how can you stand that sentra interior and gawdawful exhaust note?)

Anyhow, to the author: you’re hilarious, and spot-on. With this article alone, you’ve gained another soon-to-be-faithful reader.

Oh and by the way…we can afford this car now, and it makes ALOT more sense to our spouses than a GT-3 or a Corvette.

Come to think of it…..it makes alot more sense to me as well AWD,trunk,ect.

la kgoooo……………

.S.S.S.

1. Blowing crank shafts
2. throwing transmissions
3. tailgates falling off
4. 4 star crash rating
5. criminial investigation into poor quality
6. removed from recommended buy list by Consumer Reports due to quality issues.
7. They dont make a diesel
8. They dont make anything larger than a 1/2 ton

best of luck with those 30 trucks.. DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What with the lack of rear seat headrests and grab handles, omigod fugly styling, and whacked out color interior light changer, lets call it what it is. A car for ADD kids who think that ipods are good, when they objectively are not. My life is better than farting around using the phone when I’m supposed to be driving, and compressed audio is dreck.

If this car represents the kind of standard which gets praised these days, there is no pretty end in sight.

Jack and other people here have years of racing experience. Weight is the enemy number one in racing.
Pigs Never Fly!

Please explain how is the GTR a better handling car with that huge extra weight?

But don’t even bother to mention AWD. Traction is improved by AWD, but not handling.
GTR does not have torque vectoring, it has just a 1.5 LSD for the rear. Z06 has a 1.5 LSD as well.
If AWD would be such a winner, then 997 Turbo should easy beat a RWD car like the Z06 all the time, which is not the case.

The tires on the GTR are better, but not that much. We don’t have anything better for compare, so I will use what we have - the treadwear: 200 on the Dunlop for GTR, 220 on the Good Year for Z06.

I will give my humble opinion: GTR has one of the best transmissions in the world. But I don’t believe that it would matter as much as 5.3 seconds on a 2 minutes road track.

This is not about brand loyalty and fanboys delusions, it is about understanding cars.

The shameless marketing paid by Nissan is disgusting…

True cars lovers please chime in!

I for one believe in specialization. As GM so eloquently put it: “Do one thing, do it well.” Not everyone is going to succeed at everything right? I’ve got mixed feelings on this one. When word of the Cayenne first fell upon my ears I said “you’ve got to be kidding” and yes look at what a disaster THat turned out to be: $25,000 for an ‘04! So now, you can’t blame me for being slightly skeptical when my beloved company announces the delivery of a sedan. I’m sure i’m not alone when my first thought was “maserati quattroporte.” Yes it might be time for Porsche to develop something new… or maybe not. I’m not a big fan of band wagons and i would have to say that i’m a little disappointed in Porsche for jumping on this one. BMW? Yes. Mercedes? Sure. Bentley? Why not (with the GT… they went the other way.) But Porsche? And at the price point you know it’s going to be at? If they’re just trying to keep they’re name in the papers they should release the Porsche Panamera, make about 80 of them, and make them ridiculously expensive like somewhere in the neighborhood of the Lamborghini Reventon. At least this way, you maintain the value in the car years from now on account of its scarcity and moreover, you avoid the problem of creating mixed signals between consumers, dreamers, and automotive buffs alike

I’ll take the TT

SportAuto times are known to be slower than manufacturer claims. Or are you suggesting their driver, who does a couple laps in a car he’s not familiar with, is going to be as fast as a manufacturer driver who has run hundreds of laps in the car?

You suggest the car they tested was a ringer, but let’s have some proof beyond “well, some other guy was slower”.

If you want to use SportAuto times i have no problem with that, though. Let’s just make sure we actually use SportAuto times, not SportAuto for the GTR and manufacturer claims for everything else:

GTR: 7:50
New 911 Turbo: 7:54
C6 Z06: 7:49

As compared to several seconds (7+) faster for the manufacturer claims for each.

I do see where you are comming from, however I think you’re a little bit out of touch with the crowd that the GT-R appeals to. Let me use myself as an example. I’m going on 30 and I’m by no means a “gold collar” rich kid (little bit of offense taken from the implications of your post ). My family was middle class growing up (as were most of my friends). Through hard work I have put myself in a financial position in which I’m capable of owning not only my own home (I moved out of my parents before going to college and have never looked back thank you very much) but planning on purchasing a GT-R as well. I have long since respected the GT-R and have eagerly anticipated the release of a US version GT-R. I plan to purchase a GT-R perhaps during the 2010 model year as the construction of my new house is prohibiting me from picking one up when they’re released. Three of my friends have similar plans and come from similar backgrounds. We’re hardly descended from great amounts of money and have worked very hard for everything we have. We’re not boy racers and think the Fast and the Furious is as ridiculous as the next serious auto enthusiast. We’re weekend racers (NASA, SCCA in my case and WERA in the case of my fellow aspiring GT-R owners). We love a good game of Call of Duty, Halo, or even Forza on XBox live. We grew up playing video games since the late 80’s and feel no need to stop now that we’re approaching our 30’s and are all married.

Pardon me for not being acquainted with your racing or BMX career, and for not knowing how old you are, but it seems to me that you’re drastically misjudging the demographics of video game players and car enthusiasts. Your post smacks of someone who is out of touch with the fact that there is a VERY large segment of society that has grown up playing video games and now finds themselves in their late 20’s and early 30’s continuing the past time. I find that everyone I know picks up an XB360/Wii/PS3 controller from time to time. In addition if one were to nitpick, Gran Turismo (the catalyst for the GT-R’s popularity according to you) is a PlayStation title anyway and has never been playable on an XBox system. I point this out not as internet troll detail fault-finding, but to illustrate how out of touch you seem to be with the video game market in general and specifically those currently approaching their 30’s with cash to burn and nothing but increases to their income in the future.

What’s more, I find it laughable that you would compare the GT-R to a Carrera 3.6 when in many road tests the GT-R seems to be very handily producing better lap times than 911 Turbo’s and even the mighty GT2 (which puts you squarely into a price range that is almost double that of the GT-R’s 70K). Again, further example that you seem to have taken in much of the GT-R “hype” without bothering to research how the car is performing. If people can look past the narcissism driving their love of P-cars and put down 70K for the car that performs the best in the ~70K price range, instead of the one that has the most prestegious emblem on its nose, the GT-R will do splendidly.

Finally, to anyone criticizing Nissan for not releasing the GT-R under the Infinity brand name….. Please go place your over-sensitive luxury-craving buttock’s in the seat of a luxury sedan. The GT-R is a sports car and I, in my humble opinion, am supremely happy that Nissan seems to have given the U.S. enough credit to hope that we can see past the brand name to the actual performance that we’re purchasing and the function that it is intended for. The GT-R is the flgship of Nissan performance and should therefore display the Nissan badge proudly as opposed to a different Infinity badge that Japanese corporate types think is more appealing to the average American that requires more space, less responsive handling, and more cushioned seats for our big, fat, comfort-craving asses.

What I think it boils down to Jack is whether or not there are more of us than you. I think there are, and I think the GT-R will do just fine (well enough to meet your #1 and #2 criteria at least).

With all of that said, your blog entry is certainly thought provoking and I can’t help but agree that your average 17 year old would definitely want a GT-R and would not be able to afford it. Where we differ is that I think there are a whole lot more late 20 somethings and early 30 somethings who also would want a GT-R, but are more than capable of purchasing it

Thanks

I don’t necessarily have a *garageful* of exotics - I have a few Porsches but none of them are newer than 2004 models. I can put my hands on some interesting cars, though.

As for proving a point or flame wars - it’s neither of those; I just enjoy a race, and this guy appears to have a ton of money and a new GT-R right around the corner. I’m sure he’s up for a challenge

I would also reiterate my point above - you can’t look at the USA and make a determination that this is good or bad business. The [Skyline] GT-R (as a whole) is a legend. Does this DISTILL the “legend” ? Not one bit.

to Jack: Where/who are you going to borrow the Viper or 997 from (I’m assuming a blogger doesn’t have a garageful of exotics) ? Will that prove your original point that the GT-R was bad business for Nissan? Or are you getting sucked into a flame-war?

I like your style. When your GT-R hits the ground, why don’t you bring it out to a road course and we can run heads-up for a little cash. I’ll bring something completely inferior, like a Viper or 997.
Should be easy money for you.

While your post makes little to no sense…I will elaborate on one point that you attempted to make, but didn’s do such a good job on…and that is that the BMXer is in no position to make any sort of claim related to the GT-R being a bad business move by Nissan…he simply does not have the insight, experience or mental wherewithal to do so. The GT-R’s results have and will speak for themselves…naysayers and the uninformed please step to the left.

And hey Charles, if you are an engineer then good for you…I need behind the scenes tools like you in the toolbox to help me get done the more important business at hand…good for you!!!

While all of your statements that you are a salesman for a software company are great (being nothing but a salesman for engineers’ hard work is nothing really to be so proud of), you obviously misunderstood the entire concept of the article. The “BMXer” never claims that the GT-R will not outperform ferrari, porsche, etc. He makes a valid claim that this is a bad business move by Nissan. While I somewhat disagree about his claims that the GT-R will not sell, the point that this will not create a halo effect is certainly valid. I agree with many other posts here that the GT-R is the new generation NSX. It will make a nice used car when you find that it is not “cool” anymore.

Thats a ridiculous statement.

I can only assume that because its a) japanese b) embraces technology with twin clutch all wheel drive transmission, electronically adjustable struts, electronically adjustable shift firmness/speed that all off a sudden its a Tuner type dream car out of a Gran Turismo game?

Sure, I played Gran Turismo as a kid, and im just about in the right age range for it. Im 32. But when I played Gran Turismo, I dont think I even drove a GTR. Even if I did, I wouldnt let a game guide me to purchasing the car.

The REAL world specs, power potential, RESALE value, fit and finish of this car is what sold me. 0-60 in 3.3 seconds ? 11.7 @121 mph quarter mile time all in FACTORY form!? Resale value of a Japanese performance car ? Thats all why I have ordered my GTR already.

I think its totally ridiculous to consider people who are buying this car are people with lots of money in their 20’s, and Gran Turismo players. That stereotype sounds a bit condescending/hateful, and I think peoples opinions when this car gets more reviews / track time will DRASTICALLY change for the better (for those of you who havent already seen the light)

These things said enough time wasted on this…

I run sales and marketing for a software company…I can buy any porsche, ferrari, etc. that i want…I want the GT-R for a variety of reasons…all that lead me away from the other cars. I also know for a fact that at the same dealer that i am buying from there is a lawyer and heathcare VC…who could also buy any car that they want.

The fact of the matter is this moron Jackie boy is just a has been BMXer who is still trying to make enough $$ to cover his monthly nut…after reading up on him I firmly believe that the only reason he wrote this crap was to stir up the hornets nest of feedback he knew it would generate…all in order to feed his ego and to help him to perpetrate his personal vision of himself as an “automotive journalist”