MIMS 2008 Godzilla Greets Melbourne

Described by its creators as the "ultimate supercar for anyone, anywhere, at anytime", the latest version of the legendary GT-R has stunned the world's motoring media with its performance.

Nissan’s Motor Show presentation featured a ‘spy theme’ pointing to the long gestation period of the car that is the halo car for Nissan worldwide. Subsequently a silver model rolled out onto the floor in a rather anti-climactic way, almost relief, with little public news on the Japanese supercar. About a half of the crowd that saw the Holden/HSV unveiling made its way straight to the Nissan presentation.

The new Nissan GT-R is built on an exclusive all-new Premium Midship platform. This new platform enables the use of a world's first independent rear transaxle ATTESA E-TS all-wheel drive system, which places the transmission, transfer case and final drive at the rear of the vehicle, optimizing weight distribution and maximising handling capability.

The all-new, all-wheel-drive GT-R offers advanced high performance with a 3.8-litre twin-turbo producing 353kW and 588Nm through a dual-clutch transmission mounted in the rear. Paddle shifting and seamless changes have helped the GT-R lap the legendary Nurburgring Nordeshleife in 7m:38.54 seconds on a partly wet track, importantly a few seconds faster than Porsche’s current 911 Turbo.

Suspension is a special Bilstein DampTronic system, and the braking system is made up of Brembo full-floating drilled rotors, low steel high stiffness brake pads and Brembo mono block six-piston front and four-piston rear calipers. For excellent grip in all conditions, it wears high-performance run flat tyres on exclusive GT-R 20-inch wheels.

The Nissan GT-R's functional styling utilises advanced aerodynamics. GT-R's hybrid body construction combines steel, carbon fibre and die-cast aluminium, and features a low coefficient of drag of 0.27 – just 10 years ago, cars were struggling to better 0.30. Styling cues include front fender ‘aero-blades’ and vents, aggressive front end design with a large hood budge and single central air intake, and ‘super wide beam’ headlights. GT-R's four-passenger cabin features a sloping ‘aero blade canopy’ roofline and curved C-pillar, as well as GT-R's hallmark four-ring taillights, functional rear carbon fibre underbody diffuser, rear spoiler and large, integrated quad exhaust tips.

GT-R's interior features sculpted performance bucket seats for an optimal driving position, a cockpit-style instrument panel with a large centre-mounted tachometer and multi-function display - which includes mechanical and driving information, as well as an on-board driving recorder.

Total vehicle adjustability is provided by a "set-up switch" located in the centre of the instrument panel, enabling the driver to adjust transmission shifts, shock absorbers and the Vehicle Dynamic Control (VDC-R) in three settings - Normal, Comfort or R, for ultimate handling.

Early 2009 is the current on sale date in Australia for the R35 GT-R, with pricing expected to be around the $140,000-$150,000 mark, making it one of the most affordable supercars of its time, a reputation that it also earned when Nissan sold the original R32 GT-R in 1989.