The Nissan GT-R is not warm and cuddly. Perhaps that's to be expected of a car that is widely known as Godzilla. The GT-R's fearsome legend grew during the years it was sequestered in far-off Japan, but its awesome prowess came to be known worldwide thanks to its long-running feature role in the Gran Turismo video game series. Finally, the GT-R's international stardom proved so great that Nissan developed the sixth-generation model for a worldwide market, including North America.
Godzilla finally reached our shores in 2008. Once we tried it for ourselves, we couldn't help but be impressed-very impressed. Maybe a little awestruck, even. After all, here was a car that could outrun Porsche's mighty 911 Turbo and beat a 911 GT2 around the Nürburgring (where the GT-R's development engineers admittedly spent a lot of time). In the somewhat less renowned environs of southern Ohio, at our annual Automobile of the Year testing, the GT-R easily walked away with our top award-in a rare unanimous decision.
Even so, as much as the GT-R blew our minds with its unbelievable performance, we didn't so much embrace it as give it the kind of arm's-length respect one might accord a steroidal friend given to snorting crystal meth and brandishing semiautomatic handguns. "You don't have to like it," we concluded in our 2009 Automobile of the Year story. "You just have to stay the hell out of its way."
You might particularly want to stay out of its way when its accelerator pedal is mashed to the floor. The GT-R is just devastatingly, frighteningly fast. Try 0 to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds and 0 to 100 mph in 8.0 seconds. Top speed, not that we had much chance to explore it, is 193 mph. That's true supercar territory.
As in its previous three generations, the GT-R's motivating force is a six-cylinder engine bolstered by two turbochargers. The DOHC, 24-valve 3.8-liter V-6 is handbuilt and shares no major parts with the company's mass-market VQ V-6. Our 2010 model's output is a staggering 485 hp at 6400 rpm (five more ponies than the '09-model GT-R) and 434 lb-ft of torque (up from 430 lb-ft) at 3200 rpm.
Would that there was a better sound to accompany the engine's fury. One commenter thought it sounded "like a vacuum cleaner," but mostly you can't really hear it, because it's drowned out by the racket from the tires and the transmission. Whereas the engine in an Audi R8 or a Chevrolet Corvette provides a stimulating sound track no matter what your speed, the lack of aural accompaniment from the GT-R's V-6 lends a virtual-reality quality to the car's quickness. Said senior Web editor Phil Floraday: "You can rocket up to speeds well into the triple digits and not realize it, because there's no drama." ...next page >>