The biggest compliment we can pay to Nissan's near-supercar is that, despite all those years, it never really felt old 💔
If car years are analogous to dog years then the first examples of the R35 Nissan GT-R to be officially sold in the UK have recently passed their 91st birthdays. That's a serious innings for any modern production car, doubly so for a sharp-end performance model - one that was launched at almost the same time as the gen 2 997-generation Porsche 911. So it's not really surprising to be reporting that European sales are set to end in a couple of months.
The GT-R was an engineering masterpiece. Like the 911 Turbo it had a twin-clutch transmission and adaptive dampers, but it also had a smart torque juggling all-wheel drive system that made the Porsche's seem old fashioned. The Nissan's star feature was its savage twin-turbocharged 3.8-litre V6 which, even in its gentlest form made an official 480hp.
As with earlier GT-Rs and faster Skylines the standard car was also seen by many as little more than a blank canvas, a starting point for significant enhancements. GT-Rs had long been at the heart of a tuning culture in Japan, but the R35 expanded that around the world. Nissan was generally tolerant of such tinkering, certainly when it came to the better-known Japanese aftermarket specialists, and the GT-R was soon proving itself capable of accommodating increasingly silly power outputs.
The tunability also created something of a dilemma for Nissan, especially as initially steep depreciation got its teeth into the first cars. For considerably less than the cost of a new, fully warranted example it was possible to buy an early car, boost it to the stratosphere and still have a healthy contingency fund in case anything went pop.
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