The Nissan GT-R coupé can beat a Porsche 911 around a track and is also a Sunday driver's dream, writes Gavin Green
It feels like a nice mid-range Nissan coupé inside - like a more comfortable, more upright, more gentlemanly version of the low-slung Z car. Note the thickly padded and generously bolstered seats, in rich soft black leather. The conventionally handsome black facia, alloy finishers providing a sparkle. It's a sober car, a sensible car.
What's more, the gear lever - chunky, square shouldered, trimmed in alloy and leather - is a conventional auto shifter and it moves through an old-fashioned auto dog-leg gate. A Nissan coupé automatic then.
And indeed, later on, on the winding roads around the student city of Sendai, a couple of hours north of Tokyo on the bullet train, in full automatic mode, this coupé, with suspension on max-comfy settings, could pass as one of those old-school, maximum yawn Nissans, a car about as stimulating as Sunday afternoon tea on the sofa. And it's driving-school simple to pilot.
That's the Jekyll side to this car, so non-drivers queue here. There's even a brake-assist function for hills, to avoid going backwards unintentionally on those awkward slopey starts. You could put a learner sign on the roof and happily give lessons.
But enough of that. Now it's time to meet Hyde. Push a few switches, and you're in a car that outguns a Porsche 911 Turbo. Quite simply, the new GT-R is the world's most multifaceted supercar. Read that again, slowly, and understand the significance. Yes, we did say it outguns the 911 Turbo and can handle as docilely as a learner car.
We're at the Sendai racing circuit, in the mountains behind the city. Engineer Kazutoshi Mizuno, former head of Nissan's sports car racing programme, cigarette perennially between fingers, says there are no rev restrictions, so be careful because this circuit is fast and challenging.
"The only racing circuits we used to test the GT-R were the Nurburgring and here in Sendai," says Mizuno in broken English. "Most other circuits were simply too easy."
Sendai, says Mizuno, is a mini-ring: undulating, with challenging corners, a mix of very fast and slow, and a strong likelihood of rain because of the mountains. That's why Nissan is here.
Get into the car, hit the red start button on the centre console and the 3.8-litre V6 engine burbles into life, slightly muted by the twin turbos. Give the accelerator a prod and the engine note turns baritone and barks.
Push the chunky and rather old-fashioned gear lever down and across the dog-leg gates, selecting the manual mode.
That's step one in the transformation process from restful GT-R into racing GT-R. Now, just above the gearlever, at the bottom of the dash, there are three little switches. The left one adjusts the transmission, and you choose R mode for faster gearshifts. This middle switch adjusts the dampers. Again you choose R. The Bilstein shock absorbers are now on maximum sports setting. Finally, turn the Vehicle Dynamic Control (VDC) switch to R. That really means it's turned off. The electronic nanny has been given the afternoon off. She won't be offering any comfort to you on the track.
Then it's time to play in the fastest production car in the world, around the Nurburgring. According to Nissan, only the bespoke Porsche Carrera GT can lap the daunting German circuit quicker.
Mizuno smiles through tobacco-stained teeth. Good luck, he seems to be saying, though the engine is too noisy and the full-faced helmet muffles any voices.
Click the right paddle on the steering wheel to select first. The car burbles down the pit lane, those low-profile Bridgestone tyres and rock-hard Bilsteins communicating every pebble and squashed fag-end up through the leather steering wheel.
Finally it's time to give the right pedal and prod. The 473bhp V6 deepens in tone and growls as the GT-R hits the track proper. Then it's into second, then third before a wickedly tight chicane - right, left - gives a hint of what lies ahead.
Down the long back straight, third then fourth, the turbos kicking in to give the most enormous thrust and the gearchanges lightning quick. Then brake again and those big Brembo brakes - Mizuno says they're the best brakes on any production car and Japanese homologation tests concur - stop you like a giant hand firmly pulling the car backwards to safety.
Inside, there is none of the styling poetry of a Porsche or, even more, a Ferrari. The steering isn't as sharp as a 911's either. But it's linear and the command to change direction is instantly obeyed. There's no understeer to speak of, no front-end scrub. The nose goes where the steering asks: no questions.
Okay, there isn't the delicacy of a 911 (the GT-R is 350kgs heavier). There isn't the 911's playfulness either, that delicious interface between steering by the wheel and steering by the throttle. It doesn't dance like the best Europeans: it feels heavier, less zestful. Rather, the GT-R drives on rails, always hunkered down, a car that drives square on its feet rather than always on its toes. Less poetic, perhaps. But, in this case, faster. And so easy. A car aimed at the plebs as much as the Prosts.
The engine is a new V6, not related to the fine one used in the 350Z. It's an amazingly tractable engine, pulling away from way down low in the rev band, then energised by the twin IHI turbochargers all the way, uninterrupted, to the 7,000rpm red line.
From launch to 100km/h takes 3.6 seconds. On-boost, the GT-R surges like a wild thing and it's a seamless surge too. Helped by the brilliant six-speed transaxle, just 0.2 seconds separate a flick of the gearshift from the drive being engaged by the twin-clutch. That's blink-of-an-eye fast, as good as any car in the world. Top speed is 310km/h. More impressive, and in keeping with the Jekyll end of its character, Mizuno says you can conduct a normal conversation - without raising your voice - with a front seat passenger at 300km/h. How many passengers would reply or want to distract the driver in any way at that speed is another matter.
The four-wheel drive helps the car power out of corners, all four tyres clawing at the tarmac. There is the occasional little jig sideways, ever so easy to control by a gentle dose of opposite lock, as you push your cornering speed higher.
WHAT AMAZES IS THE car's fuss-free speed, the way you simply steer straight - you guide it rather than grapple with it - and the flat cornering and the drama-free way it powers through and out of bends, storming down straights with a slightly muffled roar, engine note interrupted only for a fraction of a second as you swap gears fast and accurate, acceleration not interrupted at all. Brake and change down, and your gearshifts are serenaded by automatic throttle blips, F1-style.
I drove the old R32 GT-R at the Nurburgring in 1989. It's one of the most extraordinary cars I have ever driven.
Not as sweet as its contemporary the Honda NS-Z, nor as pure in its responses; but meatier and faster, more hi-tech brute than flighty exotic. Its spirit lives on here.
The new one uses a bespoke coupé body rather than a mass-made Nissan shell (the R32 was based on the Japanese Skyline coupé). Like the old GT-Rs, this one is a muscular brute.
It also drips tech just like the R32, and the R33 and R34 that succeeded it. The GT-R is Nissan's engineering showcase. Take the new four-wheel-drive system. So it's fast on the track, in the rain, in the snow, on the ice.
In conditions where 911s won't come out to play, the GT-R just powers on, no problem. The innovative new rear transaxle - a first for a 4x4 - improves weight balance and makes the newest GT-R an even sweeter steer.
All too soon, Mizuno waves us in after 10 laps, just over 25 miles. The hair is plastered to skull, beads of sweat on the forehead. But we're sweating because it's hot inside that helmet. Not because it's been hard work.
There is no other fast car that's so easy to steer, none so forgiving, no car that has more armoury in its quest to go fast and keep you out of trouble.
Just as that old GT-R changed the standards for front-engined coupés, so the new one lifts the bar ever higher. An M3 beater? Easily. M5? Think higher. The car is faster, more high-tech, sharper, more capable. Faster than a 911 Turbo on the straight. Or on the circuit. And all for normal 911 money, pitting it in the same price bracket as some fast premium saloons when it arrives in spring 2009.
And for relatively reasonable money - compared to its rivals - you get one of the world's great fast cars, a techno tour de force, one of the very best cars I have ever driven.
And if, occasionally, you want to pretend that you've bought a nice sensible-shoes Nissan coupé, check the sobriety of the cabin. The GT-R can play that game too. - Car
Factfile: Nissan GT-R
ENGINE: 3799cc 24v twin-turbo V6, 473bhp @ 6,400rpm, 585Nm of torque from 3,200rpm
TRANSMISSION: Six-speed semi-automatic, four-wheel drive
PERFORMANCE: 0-100km/h: 3.6 secs; top speed: 310km/h
WEIGHT: 1,740kg
ON SALE: Spring 2009
PRICE: Unconfirmed but expect it to be in the region of €150,000