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Car & Driver: Lightning Lap 2008
Time for Car and Driver’s much anticipated Lightning Lap 2008. This is one test that quite a few car enthusiasts world wide were looking forward to and one they were hoping their favourite would whoop the GT-R in.
If you’re not familiar with the Lightning Lap yet, it’s a test held each year at Virginia International Raceway (VIR) in controlled conditions designed to discover which cars offer the best combination of power, handling, braking and fun while driving.
Well, perhaps unsurprisingly by now, the GT-R was amazing in terms of pure speed. Managing the fastest lap of any car wearing road rubber (not R Compounds) only 1 second behind the Ferrari 430 Scuderia with R-Compounds!. Overall it was 4th behind the Mosler, Viper ACR and Ferrari Scuderia.
Looking back and, while you can’t really compare year vs. year, it’s plain to see the GT-R makes extremely stiff competition for the Corvette Z06. Besting it’s 2007 lap time by more than 2 seconds. Z06 fans we’re pretty confident that the powerful Z06 would certainly overcome the GT-R at VIR but…
Results table below:
Link: Car & Driver: The Lightning Lap 2008
Link: Lightning Lap 2008: 2009 Nissan GT-R Page
Car & Driver Settle the GT-R Ringer Debate
Before the Nissan GT-R had made it’s way to US shores many magazines got the first bite of the apple with a few hours to days to spend with the pre-production US specification cars. The numbers these GT-Rs churned out were nothing short of amazing and caused much debate around the net. The conclusions on many internet communities drawn by sceptics were that these cars had to be “ringers” and that the production models would not meet expectations.
Car & Driver magazine have now got hold of a final production US specification GT-R and put it through the same tests. And guess the result?
Hint: there is no such thing as a ringer.
Car & Driver: A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of BMW?
How else could you explain them giving an M3 first place in their comparison between the M3, the GT-R and the Porsche 911 turbo.
Here’s one of those comparisons where you’d say, sure the 911 turbo or the GT-R could each easily win this. Why even bother to compare the M3 it’s only going to lose in every way? Surely!
Evidently they disagree, check out the comparison in full just posted on their website now. Even if just for the photos at the end.
Thanks to Chuck from NAGTROC for the link.
Link: Car & Driver Comparison
Update: Looks like we’re not the only one’s to think Car & Driver are smoking something, check out the Autoblog article for a laugh or two.
Tire Rack One Lap of America: Car & Driver – Final Results and Story
Well the One Lap has wrapped up and after all is said and done the Nissan GT-R did a great job against some big competition.
After last update the cars headed on to the BeaveRun events. GT-R put in a superb effort finishing 6th in event 17 and 4th in event 18 unfortunately in the autocross event 19 the GT-R missed a gate and thus was penalised with a DNF for the entire event. There was a lot of confusion over this rule and 21 other cars were penalised similarly. At this stage everyone was exhausted so weren’t exactly willing to stick around on the off chance the rules would be reviewed and a second chance given. Finally event 20 – the dry skid pad – the GT-R managed 0.98g and placed 23rd.
So overall the GT-R finished 11th and 7th in class. Just prior to the autocross DNF it was in 5th place overall so you can see it is really a shame.
Now for the wrapup from the pilot of the GT-R for the duration of the event, Car & Driver editor Tony Swan has placed a great article covering the event up on the Car & Driver web site. A very good read so check it out!
The bottom line: whatever all you Corvette and Porsche zealots may say, the GT-R is a serious player in the supercar game. It’s a formidable sports car—fast and competent, with cutting-edge technical sophistication.
Tony Swan, Car & Driver
Link: Car & Driver: 2008 One Lap of America: We Race a Nissan GT-R – Feature
Tire Rack One Lap of America: Results Update #3
The Nissan GT-R is still hanging in there despite an abysmal effort at the drag strip (sorry Tony). We left off yesterday at event four so here’s a rundown on what’s been run since then. Events 5 and 6 were held at Texas World Speedway, the GT-R finished in 14th spot ahead of Porsche’s and exotics in event 5 and 13th in event 6. Enough to snatch 295 and 300 points respectively.
Event 7 was where the GT-R was expected to shine, irrespective of driver the GT-R is good for a mid 11 second pass at the drag strip as long as you push the right buttons. Obviously the buttons remain un-pushed or there was some mechanical problem because the 12.8 second pass is what they managed. Even without launch control a mid 12 second should have been a given. So unfortunately it placed 16th in that test scrounging just 200 points.
On the back of these results the GT-R still remains in 6th place in it’s class but moves back two spots to be 7th overall. Still an admirable effort for a standard car which by all reports is handing the GT3’s their collective butts even with a driver who’s arm just got out of a cast.
Car And Driver May 2008: 2009 Nissan GT-R Road Test
Car and Driver have a US specification R35 GT-R at their disposal and have put it to the test for the upcoming May 2008 issue of the magazine. Car and Driver have had past experience with Japanese spec GT-Rs but this is the first chance they’ve had to strap their test gear on to a US model. With that done they managed some amazing results:
- 0-60mph: 3.3 seconds
- 1/4 mile: 11.5 seconds @ 124mph
- 70mph-0: 145 feet
- Skidpan G-Force: 0.99g
The magazine scans are up now on the Nagtroc forums or you can just wait for the magazine to appear at your local agent. Car and Driver also has a digital subscription service where you can get the magazines online.
Link: Car and Driver Website
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