Nissan GT-R: Front View 1

The new Nis­san GT-R’s finally landed at Tokyo!

Here’s a run down of some final specifications:

  • VR38VETT (3.8L Twin Turbo) dump­ing out 353KW (473HP, 480PS) and 588 Nm (433 lb-​​ft)
  • 6 speed, Borg Warner six-​​plate dual-​​clutch transmission
  • On sale Decem­ber 6 2007 in Japan
  • Brembo 6-​​piston brakes in front, 4-​​piston in rear
  • Bil­stein (DampTronic) suspension
  • Black Edi­tion is listed as 4WD — expected, and now confirmed.

But per­haps the most amaz­ing thing isn’t the release of this amaz­ing new car, per­haps it’s a lit­tle tid­bit given almost as an aside over at Auto­blog. They claim “Mr. Ghosn com­mit­ted to Nis­san field­ing GT-​​Rs in next year’s Super GT Cham­pi­onship” !
The GT-​​R is com­ing back to motor­sports proper, and this means the Godzilla is well and truly back in the game.

Also: Don’t for­get to view Autoblog’s pics of the GT-​​R LIVE at Tokyo!

Orig­i­nal Press Release:

NISSAN ANNOUNCES NEW NISSAN GT-​​R

TOKYO (Oct. 24, 2007) — Nis­san Motor Co., Ltd., today announced the launch of the Nis­san GT-​​R, a new multi-​​dimensional per­for­mance machine that lives up to the con­cept of “an ulti­mate super­car for any­one, any­where, at any­time”. The Nis­san GT-​​R fea­tures a newly devel­oped Pre­mium Mid­ship pack­age, includ­ing the world’s first inde­pen­dent transaxle 4WD devel­oped inde­pen­dently by Nis­san. The Nis­san GT-​​R will be avail­able in Japan mainly through Nis­san High Per­for­mance Cen­ters nation­wide from Decem­ber 6th.

The Nis­san GT-​​R was devel­oped with a new under­stand­ing and appre­ci­a­tion of the Earth’s nat­ural forces — grav­ity, iner­tial force and aero­dy­nam­ics — and trans­lates those forces into a com­pletely new design, max­i­miz­ing tire grip and airflow.

Basic vehi­cle dynam­ics and inte­gra­tion with the dri­ver have also been exam­ined, result­ing in new com­po­nen­try and cre­at­ing a Human-​​Machine Inter­face (HMI) never seen before in the mar­ket­place. All of these the­o­ries have been inte­grated to bal­ance “speed and effi­ciency,” “high-​​output with envi­ron­men­tal con­sid­er­a­tion” and “high per­for­mance and safety.”

Tak­ing these fac­tors into account, Nis­san cre­ated the all-​​new Nis­san GT-​​R, which offers advanced high per­for­mance for secure and enjoy­able dri­ving by min­i­miz­ing the effects of cli­matic, road con­di­tion or dri­ving tech­nique lim­i­ta­tions. The Nis­san GT-​​R offers ulti­mate per­for­mance for vir­tu­ally every dri­ving sit­u­a­tion — whether it be the Nur­bur­gring cir­cuit, to snow, rain or urban areas — all man­age­able by the GT-​​R dri­ver through advanced tech­nol­ogy and dri­ving dynamics.

The Nis­san GT-R’s unique char­ac­ter­is­tics are instilled not just in the vehicle’s design, but also through a spe­cial­ized pro­duc­tion process. Car­bon fiber, alu­minum and steel com­po­nents are assem­bled with a spe­cial high-​​precision process, which includes a series of vibra­tion tests. Engines and trans­mis­sions are assem­bled by a sin­gle crafts­man in a “clean room” envi­ron­ment and upon com­ple­tion, every GT-​​R under­goes a bat­tery of com­pre­hen­sive tests to ensure the proper oper­a­tion of all vehi­cle components.

To prop­erly sup­port the all-​​new GT-​​R, Nis­san has estab­lished spe­cial Nis­san High Per­for­mance Cen­ters, where all cer­ti­fied advi­sors and tech­ni­cians have received exten­sive train­ing. Total sup­port for the GT-​​R owner is offered for the first three years of own­er­ship, includ­ing mea­sure­ment and adjust­ment of the engine, trans­mis­sion and wheel align­ment after the first 1000 km, and again every 12 months, free of charge.

Pack­ag­ing and Dri­v­e­line Suited for a Supercar

The all-​​new Nis­san GT-​​R uses a Pre­mium Mid­ship pack­age, an all-​​new, more advanced ver­sion Front Mid­ship (FM) pack­age uti­lized on other Nis­san vehi­cles. This new pack­age enables the use of the world’s first appli­ca­tion of an inde­pen­dent transaxle 4WD sys­tem. The transaxle’s lay­out places the dual-​​clutch trans­mis­sion, trans­fer case and final drive at the rear of the vehi­cle (instead of the usual front loca­tion), which enables vehi­cle weight to be evenly dis­trib­uted through­out the car. This gives the Nis­san GT-​​R a superb front-​​to-​​rear weight bal­ance, while enhanc­ing leg and foot space and allow­ing for an opti­mal pedal layout.

Under the hood, the Nis­san GT-​​R fea­tures an all-​​new 3.8-litre twin turbo V6 “VR38” engine, fea­tur­ing plasma-​​sprayed bores and a spe­cial twin-​​turbo exhaust man­i­fold sys­tem. A sec­ondary air man­age­ment sys­tem enables the newly designed pow­er­plant to pro­vide approx­i­mately 40kg/​m of torque dur­ing ordi­nary low-​​rev dri­ving, which gives an opti­mum air-​​fuel ratio for around-​​town effi­ciency and helps the Nis­san GT-​​R meet ultra-​​low emis­sion vehi­cle (U-​​LEV) stan­dards in Japan.

The Nis­san GT-R’s new engine pro­duces 480PS (353kW) at 6400rpm and max­i­mum torque of 60kgm (588Nm) from 3200 to 5200rpm. Putting the power to the ground is an all-​​new GR6-​​type dual clutch trans­mis­sion, with pad­dle shift­ing and a Borg Warner six-​​plate dual clutch for direct control.

Sus­pen­sion duties are han­dled through a spe­cial Bil­stein DampTronic*1 sys­tem, which uti­lizes all per­ti­nent vehi­cle infor­ma­tion to pro­vide appro­pri­ate damp­ing forces for all sit­u­a­tions and helps main­tain a high level of con­trol for straight-​​line dri­ving, cor­ner­ing, and braking.

Brak­ing is essen­tial for a daily-​​driven super­car and the GT-​​R fea­tures large Brembo full-​​floating drilled rotors, low steel high stiff­ness brake pads and Brembo mono block six-​​piston front and four-​​piston rear calipers, which in com­bi­na­tion min­i­mize fade and pro­vide sta­ble brak­ing. Run-​​flat tires, exclu­sively designed for use on the Nis­san GT-​​R, bal­ance high grip and all-​​weather capa­bil­i­ties and a com­fort­able ride in all dri­ving sit­u­a­tions. The tires are designed to main­tain struc­ture for 80km of travel at 80 km/​h, while still pro­vid­ing an accept­able level of performance.

High-​​Performance Safety and Envi­ron­men­tal Technologies

The Nis­san GT-​​R offers a long list of safety and envi­ron­men­tal fea­tures, includ­ing, for enhanced vis­i­bil­ity inside and out of the vehi­cle, high-​​mounted LED sto­plamps, bright LED rear com­bi­na­tion tail­lights, “super wide beam” head­lights, heated door mir­rors and flat-​​blade wipers.

Stan­dard safety equip­ment includes a pop-​​up engine hood sys­tem for enhanced pedes­trian safety, dri­ver and front pas­sen­ger SRS Air Bag Sys­tem, ELR front seat belts with ten­sion reducer, front seat belts with load lim­iter, and three-​​point ELR rear seat belts. Dri­ver and front pas­sen­ger SRS Side Air Bag Sys­tem and SRS Cur­tain Air Bag Sys­tem are offered as options.

Envi­ron­men­tal tech­nolo­gies include exten­sive work to cre­ate an U-​​LEV cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in Japan for the 3.8-liter twin turbo engine and reduced lev­els of volatile organic com­pound for mate­ri­als used in the car.

Func­tional Design — High Per­for­mance Aero­dy­nam­ics and Style

The Nis­san GT-R’s styling fol­lows the func­tion over form the­ory. Every styling aspect, from the over­all design to the small­est details, is cre­ated to max­i­mize the vehicle’s dri­ving expe­ri­ence — as well as sug­gest­ing GT-R’s “super­car” level of per­for­mance. Uti­liz­ing advanced aero­dy­nam­ics, the Nis­san GT-R’s aggres­sive styling evokes the lines of a well-​​trained ath­lete, com­bin­ing strong char­ac­ter lines with smooth and solid areas.

The all-​​new GT-R’s body is cre­ated with a com­bi­na­tion of steel, car­bon fiber and alu­minum, pro­vid­ing a unique com­bi­na­tion of stiff­ness and light­ness. The Nis­san GT-​​R fea­tures a low coef­fi­cient of drag of 0.27, with high front and rear down­force, which pro­vides the GT-​​R with enhanced grip in all weather sit­u­a­tions, while also enhanc­ing fuel efficiency.

The front fend­ers express power and sta­bil­ity, while the “aero-​​blades” on the fend­ers’ lead­ing edges pro­vide opti­mum air­flow around the tires and along the body. The scoop in the fend­ers’ trail­ing edges assists in pro­vid­ing front down­force and opti­miza­tion of side air­flow. The aggres­sive front end, with a large hood budge and sin­gle air intake, pro­vides a sophis­ti­cated style as well as undis­turbed air­flow for power and cool­ing. New “super wide beam” head­lights fea­ture three addi­tional sub-​​reflectors (com­pared to con­ven­tional lights) to give a wider spread to the illu­mi­na­tion area.

The Nis­san GT-R’s large, four-​​passenger cabin fea­tures a slop­ing “aero blade canopy” roofline and curved C-​​pillar “sword edge,” which expresses the dis­tinc­tive GT-​​R iden­tity, as well as facil­i­tat­ing air flow around the rear of the vehi­cle. The GT-R’s hall­mark four-​​ring tail­lights, effi­cient rear spoiler and large, inte­grated ?120 exhaust tips, pro­vides the sig­na­ture rear view of the GT-​​R, as well as opti­miz­ing air­flow along the top and under the vehicle.

The high level of advanced tech­nol­ogy is evi­dent even in the Nis­san GT-R’s paint — which uti­lizes a “dou­ble clear coat” and “anti-​​chipping” process. The Nis­san GT-​​R fea­tures Ulti­mate Sil­ver as a spe­cial new color, which is painstak­ingly hand-​​polished by craftsman.

An Inte­rior Suit­able for Daily Dri­ving or Super­car Duties

Key to the Nis­san GT-R’s usabil­ity as a both daily dri­ver and a high-​​performance super­car is its inte­rior, which is designed to bal­ance func­tion­al­ity, a sense of ease, and comfort.

Sculpted per­for­mance bucket seats give the dri­ver and pas­sen­ger a com­fort­able dri­ving expe­ri­ence, and soft pads are uti­lized on the dash in front of the pas­sen­ger and doors to give an extra level of com­fort and safety.

The instru­ment panel sur­rounds the dri­ver, with all meters and multi-​​function meter at a uni­form height to min­i­mize the driver’s head move­ment when trav­el­ing at high speeds. A large center-​​mounted tachome­ter, with gear dis­play on its upper right, as well as the easy-​​to-​​read graph­ics of the dis­play, gives the dri­ver instant detailed infor­ma­tion, essen­tial for the per­for­mance nature of the GT-​​R.

Func­tional style is also evi­dent in the Nis­san GT-​​R — each meter fea­tures a dial plate design that evokes the idea of engaged gears, as well as a three-​​dimensional metal-​​like ring, sug­gest­ing the multi-​​dimensional per­for­mance of the GT-​​R. A large, metallic-​​framed cen­ter con­sole fea­tures the ergonom­i­cally designed shift lever and a red “engine start” button.

Adjusta­bil­ity is cen­tral to the daily-​​driver nature of the Nis­san GT-​​R, with a spe­cial “set-​​up switch” located in the cen­ter of the instru­ment panel. This switch enables the dri­ver to adjust trans­mis­sion shifts, shock absorbers and the Vehi­cle Dynamic Con­trol (VDC-​​R) in three set­tings — Nor­mal, Com­fort or R, the high-​​performance set­ting designed for the Nis­san GT-​​R “super­car” application.

A high-​​speed, high-​​capacity CARWINGS (Japan mar­ket) nav­i­ga­tion sys­tem, with a pow­er­ful 30GB hard disk drive, fea­tures an easy-​​to-​​use touch pad, as well as tra­di­tional nav­i­ga­tion switches. The screen inter­face fea­tures not only the nav­i­ga­tion sys­tem, but also an enriched enter­tain­ment sys­tem with a Music Box hard drive, DVD and CD player, and Blue­tooth� *2 audio function.

For spe­cial use in the GT-​​R appli­ca­tion, the multi-​​function meter also includes mechan­i­cal and dri­ving infor­ma­tion for safe high per­for­mance dri­ving, includ­ing accel­er­a­tion open­ing, brake pedal pres­sure, and steer­ing angle. It also includes an “opti­mal gearshift map,” to empha­size eco­nom­i­cal vehi­cle operation.

A spe­cially designed BOSE sound sys­tem includes two forward-​​facing woofers in the rear cen­ter arm­rest area com­bined with tra­di­tional door speak­ers. All speak­ers are mounted in rigid alu­minum die cast pan­els, which com­bined with the design of the sys­tem itself, pro­vide sound qual­ity suit­able for a supercar.

Pric­ing and Sales Target

Engine Grade Trans­mis­sion Price (yen, Con­sump­tion tax included)

GT-​​R : 7,770,000

GT-​​R Black edi­tion : 7,927,500

GT-​​R Pre­mium edi­tion : 8,347,500