Nissan GTR R35 – Awesome!

Part 2 of 2

I must admit that I wasn’t sold on the present GTR ( R35), despite what I have read and watched on videos, simply because it did not come with a conventional manual gearbox. I am a purist at heart. I want to select my own gears, the traditional way, because I have found over time that I derive maximum driving pleasure from doing that. But, I must admit, that when I watched Top Gear’s test run of the GTR R35, especially (The) Stig’s time attack on Top Gear’s test track, I was dumbstruck. I was ready to sing praises to the fourteen highly trained mechanics at the factory in Tochigi, Japan (where the GTR’s engine is hand assembled). At that moment, I wasn’t just impressed I also realized how serious Nissan was, about building a performance car.

Godzilla

The GTR has more technology than the Silicon Valley and to showoff, embedded in its bag of techno-wizardry is a feature which disengages the speed limiter when the car’s ECU through the GPS ‘realizes’ that the car is at one of the race tracks in Japan, or at a track which Nissan gives its stamp of approval. That my friend, is deep, race car deep. I am now one of the R35’s loudest advocates. Godzilla! Godzilla! Godzilla!

On a different note, North America and Europe (excluding Great Britain) are waking up to what was known a long time ago in Asia, Australia and thankfully in the Caribbean (thanks to Japanese imports) that the GTR is an amazing performance car. A Supercar – Japanese style. It is phenomenally fast and it comes equipped with mind-warping abilities. Apart from being one of the fastest production cars being built today, the GTR is as good as the best there is out there and it is available at a significantly lower price than the other cars in its class.

Bruno Senna

Bruno Senna, the nephew of the late Formula One great, Aryton Senna, when he drove the GTR R35 for the first time, indicated that it (the R35) had no turbo lag and it was “so much easier to drive on the limit”. His comments are noteworthy because they were said when he was comparing the GTR to what he described as his favorite car, the Porsche 911 Turbo. This was my favorite comment – exiting a corner Bruno smiled and said “So much power. Nissan did a great job with this car”.

Jeremy Clarkson

If you are still not convinced I will allow the charismatic host of BBC’s Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson to assist my mission. During his test drive of the GTR R35 in Japan, Clarkson remarked, “I thought when I drove the Mitsubishi Evo X the other day, that there was no way the GTR could be worth twice as much money, well, I just thought there was no way it could be twice as good, but, it is and some! They (Nissan) haven’t built a new car. They have built a new yardstick”!  

Usain Bolt

Incidentally, the world’s ‘fastest’ man, Usain Bolt, despite testing a Ferrari and several other cars when he went in search of a car to replace his BMW M3, decided to buy, guess what, a Nissan GTR R35! Wouldn’t you expect the world’s fastest man to drive one of the world’s fastest production cars? Of course you would. How would I describe the Nissan GTR R35? One word – AWESOME!

Cecil Munroe Gleaner On-Line Writer