Nissan GT-R 2009 News

From January Nissan's GT-R supercar will deliver a better ride without losing any of the hard-edge performance from its 357kW twin-turbocharged V6.  Apart from the suspension, Nissan engineers have fine-tuned the brakes, gearbox and cooling system.Nissan Australia spokesman, Jeff Fisher, is unsure of the specific suspension improvements and has asked Japan to clarify what work has been done.  "We've sent a request to Japan for confirmation on just exactly what the engineers have changed," he says.What is known is that the front spring and damper rates have been revised to soften the car's harsh ride.  At the back the latest Godzilla gets stiffer rear suspension radius rod bushings, designed to improve feel and responsiveness during cornering.  At launch the 310km/h coupe was criticised for its hard ride but Fisher says this has not held back customers.The $155,000 GT-R has been a sales winner locally.  The company had originally expected to sell 200 a year but 240 have been sold since its April launch.  "We're looking at doing a constant 200 a year through it's model life," Fisher says.  "The early signs are that demand will continue to exceed our expectations."Pricing for the 2010 car will remain the same, despite the favourable Australian dollar.  "Pricing is set several months in advance and manufacturers hedge on the exchange rate," Fisher says.Fisher says GT-R buyers are migrating from Euro brands like Porsche but others are adding a GT-R to their high-performance garages, which often include Aston Martins and Jaguar XKs.  The GT-R's drive system has also be revised to reduce rear-axle binding when the all-wheel drive components are cold while better cooling is provided for the exhaust and gearbox.The six-speed dual clutch transmission has been altered to give a later downshift from sixth gear to fifth when being driven in automatic mode. A more aggressive downshift pattern has been provided from fourth to third and third to second.  The front transmission mount has also been stiffened to reduce vibration through the driveline under hard acceleration.Nissan engineers have moved the electronic brakeforce distribution bias rearwards for better braking stability in dry conditions and changes to the rear air deflector design has improved rear brake cooling.  The twin-turbo V6 now complies with tough Euro 5 emissions requirements without any power or performance loss, while CO2 emissions having dropped 3g to 295g/km.Visually, the front and rear bumpers get a double coat of clear paint, giving a deeper finish.  Inside the speedo and rev counter now sport metallic finishes.  The audio and navigation system gets 40GB of storage space, three-dimensional navigation, voice-control and higher resolution 7-inch screen.

Godzilla is back with more punishing performance than anything else to hit the road in 2009, as well as a value pricetag which puts its go-faster rivals in the shade. It's impossible to ignore, incred

It is 20 kilometres long, with 100 corners pitching and rolling through the Eifel Mountains, and was made famous when Niki Lauda crashed his Ferrari in flame in 1976 — a smash that ended Formula One racing on the historic old course.The 'Ring is still used for long-distance races and is home to test teams from most of the world's major carmakers, including Nissan which used the track to hone its GT-R supercar.But not even the Nurburgring can compare to America's most challenging race course. It's not Indianapolis, or the streets of Long Beach, or the Bristol oval which hosts the most popular Nascar race each season. The historical home of American motorsport is at Pikes Peak, above Colorado Springs on the eastern fringes of the Rockies.It might be a few metres shorter than the Nurburgring but, the hillclimb course for the 87th annual Race to the Clouds has half as many bends again — a total of 156 — with sheer, unprotected cliffs that plummet 1000 metres from the track to oblivion. It climbs from around 2800 metres to just over 4200 metres at an average rate of ascent of a seven per cent gradient."I had heard about Pikes Peak and seen the famous film shot on the mountain with Ari Vatanen 20 years ago, but only when you come here do you realise how much of a challenge it is," says double World Rally Champion Marcus Gronholm.The Flying Finn is retired from rallying, although he guested earlier this year for Subaru, but still keeps sharp by driving a range of go-fast Fords. Gronholm and Swedish Rallycross champion Andrea Eriksson are the two biggest names in global motorsport to attempt the annual hillclimb in two decades. And both are rookies.Names from the past who have come and conquered the mountain include rally champions Vatanen, Michele Mouton and Walter Rohrl — who each ran in modified versions of World Rally Championship cars — and former Indy 500 winners Al and Bobby Unser.Since the hill's heyday in the 1980's, when Vatanen starred in 'Climb Dance in his Peugeot, more and more sections of highway to the summit have seen the hard-packed gravel surface rolled over by convention bitumen paving. Within two years the whole road will be asphalt.For Gronholm, attacking the mountain in its natural state is an opportunity too good to miss. "This is one of those events that will be great to tell people you came and did," he says.Gronholm and Eriksson's weapon of choice to try and break the back of this mighty mountain is an 850 horsepower, four-wheel drive Fiesta based on the top selling road car in Europe, and one of the Carsguide favourites in Australia."The car is way more powerful than a World Rally Car," explains Eriksson during one of the three dawn practice sessions for the race. "The altitude sucks out almost 30 per cent of the power by the summit so it is best to come with plenty. Traction is the other key thing and so we fit huge wings to keep the car fixed to the mountain. It is no place to go off . . ."In the past, former race winner Rod Millen — a New Zealander who won races and rallies in the USA as well as starring as a stunt driver in many films and commercials — built a Toyota with an engine so radical it could not be started at sea level. It has to be high in the mountains, where the thinner air could take the massive turbocharger boost.Practice in 2009 is a challenge for the two Scandinavians. Eriksson slides wide in the Boulders section near the summit, slamming his Fiesta into a rock. It takes two days to straighten the car in time for Sunday's race."I lost power into the corner. And without power you lose some control," he explains. "I tried to stop the car with the handbrake but unfortunately it was one of the few corners with rocks on the outside. The car rolled onto its side, which left it and me with a few sore places."Meanwhile, Gronholm requests a change to the set-up of his gearbox in search of better acceleration out of tight corners and, after the final practice, the team decides to put a new motor in the car. "The previous one was overheating a bit, so it was sensible to change the engine," says Eriksson, who is also the team leader.In one year, 1994, the record at Pikes Peak dropped 39 seconds - as fast a rock falling from one of the precipitous cliff edges. But, since 1994, the record has only crept down by three seconds.Now it sits precariously balanced on the edge of the landmark 10-minute barrier, one which Millen tried and failed to beat several times, and is currently held at 10 minutes 01.41s by Japan's Nobuhiro 'Monster' Tajima. He is back to defend his title in a wicked twin-engined Suzuki prototype and, like the Ford drivers, is try to break into the nine-minute zone."To break the 10 minute barrier on our first attempt is quite a challenge," warns Gronholm the night before the race. "But, hey, I like a challenge."Weather forecasts are trash before they are even broadcast in the Rockies. Some years, the hillclimb has started in 30-degree heat and finished in a minus-10 snowstorm.Wary of predicted afternoon storms, Tajima chooses to run in the Unlimited Division, including the Fiestas and a modified Group B Ford RS200 driven by Britain's Mark Rennison, to run before lunch.Rennison goes first in the modified 1980s rally car but, with no real experience of Pikes Peak, his time of 12 minutes 11 seconds is never going to win. "I'll be back hopefully and give this a good crack," he says.Next up is Eriksson. With his damaged Fiesta straightened he launches off the line with gusto. The crash earlier in the week means he had not practised the first section of the course at speed, and so, caught out at Engineer's Bend a third of the way up, he loses control and crashes again.So now all eyes are on Marcus Gronholm. With a new engine in his Fiesta he knows he has to deliver. "The car has been at its best on the first section and was today," says Gronholm. "It handles so well on the sweeping tarmac. But it was clear from the start we had a little misfire. I pushed on regardless and by the mid section I was hopeful of a good time. Not a record time but a reasonable one."But, as Gronholm nears the final section of dirt highway near the summit, the turbo fails and the interior of the car starts to fill with smoke. Undaunted, he presses on to the peak, left-foot braking to keep what power remains on tap. But the brakes too started to feel the strain and as he crosses the finish line, just over 11 minutes since the start, flames erupt from the wheels. "With no turbo it was game over. It's a shame. I think we could have managed a 10 minute 40 second time," he says.And so it's Tajima who does the job again, but even he cannot crack the 10-minute barrier. His winning time in the wild, wicked, little Suzuki is 10 minutes 15 seconds. But there is a challenge and both mean are expected back in 2010, perhaps with the advantage of a fully-paved course to the clouds."We'll just have to come back next year. This car has huge potential," Gronholm says as he packs for home. 

Nissan announced earlier today that the car had improved its lap time at the renowned Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit in Germany to 7min 26 seconds 70 on April 23.The Nissan GT-R’s previous recorded lap times at the ‘Ring’ were:* 7 minutes 27 seconds 56 on April 15, 2009* 7 minutes 29 in April 2008* 7 minutes 38 in September 2007"This record demonstrates our commitment to the continuous evolution of the Nissan GT-R," says Kazutoshi Mizuno, chief vehicle engineer and chief vehicle specialist."We would like to continue delivering the passion and pride of ownership to our customers by improving its performance every year."

PETFOOD magnate Tony Quinn scored the biggest success of his motorsport career when he drove to victory in the 2009 Targa Tasmania with his Nissan GT-R. His job was made easier when Jim Richards and Kevin Weeks both crashed out of contention, leaving the VIP Pet Foods boss with an eventual winning margin of six minutes over Jason White in a Lamborghini. Rex Broadbent completed a hat-trick with classic victory in his Porsche 911, while Greg Johnston took the showroom class in a Mitsubishi Evo.FOUR points was the margin between success and failure for Chad Reed in this year's AMA and World Supercross Championship as the superstar Aussie came up just short in the grand final in Las Vegas at the weekend. Reed scored 11 seconds places from 17 starts in the supercross series with his Suzuki, as well as three wins, but it was not enough to stop James Stewart lifting the title with a safe third place in Las Vegas.MARCUS Marshall surprised his V8 Supercar rivals by re-setting the lap record at Winton last weekend in his unsponsored BF Falcon. The speedy young Queenslander did the job in an ex-Triple Eight Ford on the soft Dunlop racing tyres used for the first time at Winton, dropping the benchmark time to 1 minute 22.9813 seconds as he raced to a memorable ninth place on Sunday afternoon.NICK Percat made another clean sweep of the Formula Ford championship races at Winton last weekend, with Chaz Mostert following him home in each of three heats. The weekend result gives Percat a 61-48 break over Mostert, with Mitchell Evans and Scott Pye next in the junior series.MARCOS Ambrose finished just outside of the top 10 in his latest Nascar start at Richmond in Virginia despite contact with the wall early in the event. Finishing 11th, after his benchmark fourth place a week earlier at Talladega, gave him his seventh top-20 result from 10 starts and moved him up to 19th in the Sprint Cup standings with his Toyota Camry.DEAN Canto and Luke Youlden have filled the co-driving seats at Ford Performance Racing for this year's V8 Supercar enduros. It is their second year alongside FPR regulars Mark Winterbottom and Steven Richards at Phillip Island and Bathurst, as Nathan Pretty also returns for the long-distance events as a member of Kelly Racing.The pace-setting car in V8 Supercar racing is now driven by a woman. Amber Anderson, a 25-year-old Melbourne lawyer who is trying to build a racing career, has been chosen to drive the Nissan GT-R safety car at several rounds of the series and had her first start at Winton last weekend.SWINE flu meant an early end of the A1GP season which was planned to finish in Mexico City at the end of May. The series ended instead in Britain last weekend, when Team Ireland raced to the championship with Adam Carroll, as Team Australia trailed in eighth after an identical finish in the feature race in the UK by John Martin.THE popular Speed on Tweed historic festival has been revived as part of the program for Repco Rally Australia in September. The course through the streets of Mulwillumbah on the NSW north coast will also be used as a special stage during the running of Australia's event in the World Rally Championship.THE remaining events in the Aussie Racing Cars championship have been re-jigged for the rest of 2009, with a break until the Shannons Nationals meeting at Winton on June 27-28. The baby racers then head to Eastern Creek on August 7-9, Oran Park on August 29-30 and Homebush for the Sydney 500 meeting from December 4-6.The re-scheduled Victorian Open Sprint Kar Championship will be held this weekend at the Hume International Raceway near Seymour. More than 400 of Australia's best racers will compete at an event which was postponed from February 13-15 because of the tragic Victorian bushfires. 

Nissan claimed the production car crown with its supercar GT-R last year, despite Porsche's questions about the car and tyres used for the record run, but was not remotely satisfied with its first effort.So it has just been back with another GT-R, running on the tyres and wheels developed for the V-Spec hot-up of the car in Japan.The result, with chief test driver and former F1 pilot Toshio Suzuki at the wheel, is a lap in 7 minutes 27.56 seconds.The GT-R's previous best was 7 minutes 29, again with Suzuki driving but running on standard road tyres and rims. Those tyres are now displayed at Dunlop's headquarters in Japan.But Nissan is still not happy and its test and development team is still in Germany, ready to have another go after the record-breaking first attempt was slowed a little by dust and sand on the track.

And if that's the case, why didn't we tell you about it earlier?Simple. Because it's not a GT-R wagon. But we got you thinking, didn't we?Small Nagoya-based tuner, Kids Heart, who are known in Japan as a specialist maker of drift cars, decided to have some fun with a GT-R body. And this is the result. It fooled a lot of visitors including some Nissan engineers too, who thought they'd been left out of something.Appearing at last weekend's Nagoya Auto Trend show, the car you see is a Nissan Stagea wagon with a GT-R front end modified and attached for a GT-R look.It is not fitted with the GT-R's 480hp V6 twin turbo.They say they plan to sell the wagon as a complete customised car for around 2m yen.

Godzilla is stepping back into the 'Ring for yet another championship shootout with the best of the heavyweight production car contenders.With the verbal slanging match between Nissan and Porsche over the Japanese manufacturer's claim of a sizzling 7min 29sec lap of the Nurburgring still echoing Nissan is about to re-ignite the flame.Chief GT-R test driver Toshio Suzuki confirmed this week that he is heading back to the Nurburgring in April confident of clocking an even faster time for the 20 kilometre circuit."Four or five seconds ... I think that will be very possible," Suzuki, at Eastern Creek to help launch the GT-R into Australia, says."If the conditions are good and everything works as it should there is no reason it would not be possible to go that fast."The suggestion that a production-fettled GT-R could lower the benchmark time even further is certain to throw fuel on the claims from Porsche that the full story is not being told.At the time of the original 7:29 claim last April Porsche was quick to question the result and raise doubts about how it was achieved.The Germany performance meisters claimed the only way the GT-R could have lapped the Nurburgring in that time was by using special tyres closer to racing slicks than regular road rubber - an allegation Nissan flatly denied.Suzuki, a former Grand Prix driver, says updates to the GT-R's engine and suspension will be enough to bring the new lap target within reach."The little bit extra power (3kW) and improved engine sharpness together with the improved spring and damper settings make the faster time possible," Suzuki says."Then it is also important what happens on the day."The fastest road car lap around the 73-turn track is 6min 55sec in a Radical sports car.The official fastest lap is 6min 11sec set by a Porsche 956 Le Mans racer back in 1983. 

...with almost 75 per cent of this year's allocation already sold."The order book is sitting at about 130-140 ... and I am confident that all 190 cars available to us for this year will find homes," Nissan Australia boss Dan Thompson says.Priced from $148,800, the GT-R is available through 11 Nissan high performance centres in the capital cities.However, Thompson concedes that there is still some fine-tuning to be done on how the high-tech supercar will be serviced. "This is a whole new ball game for us ... it is a great experience and there are some things we are still working through."Key among those is the complex servicing schedule demanded by the car's hand-built bi-turbo 3.8-litre V6. At launch in Japan Nissan was promising a free three-year premium performance program which includes specialised racing car-style servicing with full chassis and suspension balance as well as a precision engine tune and balance."We have not made a final decision on how servicing will be handled in Australia but it will be at a standard commensurate with the car," he says. "To have the GT-R is a very exciting thing ... it is a supercar and that is something none of our traditional competitors have in their model ranges."It seems certain that Nissan Australia will not offer the Ultimate Metal Silver finish which highlights the range in Japan.Ultimate Silver requires a seven-coat treatment with a base coat, primer, a basic silver colour, a clear coat, the ultimate silver with higher metal content and brightness index and then two more clear coats.Nissan paint engineers concede damage to the finish could not be touched up or even totally resprayed at any normal paint shop. 

GT-R out frontThe latest Nissan GT-R is about to be confirmed as the official pace car for the V8 Supercar championship, taking over from Chrysler and, before that, Audi.Action at the 'BoolThe biggest sprintcar race of the summer, the Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic, will be run at Warrnambool next weekend. The program includes NOS Sprints and a display of super rods.Twin BeamsDick Johnson will run different livery on his Jim Beam Falcons in the V8 Supercar championship. Steven Johnson will be in the red car and James Courtney will be the man in black to reflect the sponsor's latest products.Engaging typeRyan Briscoe has begun the season with Team Penske on a high after his engagement to Nicole Manske. The IndyCar racer met Manske in the US, where he is racing and she works as a TV presenter.Formula for MBELewis Hamilton describes his MBE award as ``a massive honour and incredible privilege''. The new world champion has been made a Member of the British Empire by the Queen for services to motorsport.Look back at BathurstThe latest running of the Great Race at Bathurst is recorded in brilliant style by the publishers of 1k.08, in shops soon. The book has some great pictures. It costs $59,95 -- or $175 with leather wrap. www.p101.com.au