German Car Zone

Godzilla on Steroids


The 2009 Nissan GT-R SpecV breaks the law.

Actually the GT-R has been breaking the law since last year. Before then, the Japanese car industry kept its high-performance cars below a ceiling of 280 horsepower, an unwritten, yet very real limit established by the Japanese government back in 1989.

But the Nissan GT-R shattered the glass ceiling with its 480-hp twin-turbo V6. And now the 2009 Nissan GT-R SpecV pushes even farther past the barrier, further reinforcing the GT-R's status as a true supercar. Just over a year since the car's introduction, Nissan has given a shot of steroids to Godzilla, creating the most extreme road-going machine that Japan has ever seen.

And we've got the test numbers to prove it.

The Extreme Edition

Since we first spied the prototype of the 2009 Nissan GT-R SpecV while it was being tested at the Nürburgring last year, much has been reported about this high-performance version of the turbocharged, all-wheel-drive GT-R. We've heard about its lightweight carbon-fiber body parts, overboost turbo control, carbon-ceramic brakes, unique suspension setup and special tires. Now we've been invited to Nissan's test track at Tochigi, about two hours from Tokyo, to drive the SpecV. And we've brought along our VBOX to record some performance data.

Kazutoshi Mizuno himself leads us out onto the blacktop at the proving ground, and the GT-R's chief engineer is raving about the ultra-special upgrades represented by this SpecV edition. We feel a little bit like Mel Gibson in Mad Max, as the Goose leads him down into an underground workshop to reveal that thundering 600-hp pursuit special. The Goose beams, "You can shut the gate on this one, Maxy. It's the duck's guts!"

Now Mizuno might not be as colorful with his description, but he is no less enthusiastic. He's the only chief engineer we know of who reports directly to the boss of his car company, and you understand why after hearing his philosophy, "Supercars according to Mizuno."

For example, Mizuno says, "We thought the opposite to most engineers; we thought backward. For our GT-R, we first came up with a target curb weight of around 3,860 pounds and then thought, 'Now, what do we need to achieve that weight?'"

Time To Lose Weight

Sitting here on the asphalt at Tochigi, the 2009 Nissan GT-R SpecV looks more menacing than the standard GT-R. It wears $5,900 in optional Ultimate Black Opal paint (a shade of deep purple), as well as a grille, front brake ducts and rear wing made from lightweight carbon fiber. The forged-aluminum 20-inch wheels by Rays Engineering also reduce weight. To shed further pounds, Mizuno also directed the removal of the two tight-fitting rear seats, replacing them with soft plastic covers. The Recaro seats up front are built up from thin carbon-fiber shells to reduce weight as well.

All told, the SpecV lost 132 pounds, dropping its curb weight to 3,704 pounds. To tell the truth, though, we really had hoped as much as 220 pounds could have been dropped from the bottom line.

It is time for some more of the Mizuno mind. "The GT-R is the anyone-anywhere-anytime supercar," he says. "This is a car tailored to those drivers who really enjoy fast driving and like to push a car to its limits on a track. That's why we strived to build it with the best brakes in the world."







Full Story and Edmunds Video: Edmunds Inside Line - 2009 Nissan GT-R SpecV Full Test


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