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Nissan Shows off New GT-R to Press at Nurburgring
Journos from around the world have been given the first hands on with the latest incarnation of the Nissan GT-R over the past couple of weeks. What better place to do it than the Nurburgring where lucky press members were able to take the DBA-R35 on the Nordschlieffe to feel for themselves just how much of an improvement the 2012 model will be.
First of the articles have popped up on sites like Edmunds and Autocar each with some tantalising new photos of the car including finally some good interior shots.
To add to this, Nissan has been gracefully letting a few select European GT-R owners out on hot laps around the ‘ring with Nissan test drivers. What a ride, check out one of the YouTube videos below with Italian GT-R Club member Discoragno get’s a ride along with “Lord of the Ring” Toshio Suzuki himself.
Thanks to MC and Chuck H for the links.
Images: Autocar UK
Images: Edmunds
Discussion Thread: NAGTROC
2012 Nissan GT-R Spied With Updated Wheel Design
Edmunds has scooped a few new photos of the 2012 GT-R at Nurburgring again today. This time shes wearing even less camouflage than before so we can start to properly appreciate the new curves up front.
What’s most surprising and what they failed to comment on was the completely new wheel design. It’s long been predicted that Nissan will also need to refresh the wheel design to complete a facelift and it looks like they have. Not a huge departure from the original design which is a good thing because the original wheels were great. These are expected to be slightly lighter than the 2009 versions.
Link: Edmunds Straightline Website
MotorTrend: 2012 Nissan GT-R Unmasked Spied at Nurburgring
There’s been a lot of the masked / camouflaged GT-R photos on various sites around the net this week. Unfortunately most of them gave us even less of an idea than we already had about what the facelifted 2012 GT-R was going to look like.
MotorTrend has changed that with the publication of some much more juicy photos clearly showing the front double canards and the rear diffuser updates.
It’s certainly a big departure from what I was expecting up front, I was assuming a more subdued front canard look. Nevertheless the rear end look appeals to me a lot.
Lots more photos at the MotorTrend website linked below…
Link/Source: MotorTrend: Nissan GT-R Prototype Spied
Corvette ZR-1 Sport Auto Supertest at Nurburgring Results In
If you’re a manufacturer of anything even remotely sporty these days you’re no doubt testing at the Nurburgring. Fine tuning and tweaking the performance because of just how well the Nurburgring represents a wide variety of driving conditions.
You wont be the only one testing your final product there however because, if it’s a real sports car, then Germany’s Sport Auto magazine will put it to their famous Supertest.
The Nissan GT-R had to do it and passed with flying colours setting a 7:38 laptime with editor Horst von Saurma (HvS) behind the wheel. Well now the Corvette ZR1’s time has come to be put to the same test.
Despite the weight and power advantage over the GT-R, the ZR1 only managed to equal the GT-R’s 7:38 lap time on the 13 mile long Nordschliefe circuit in the hands of the same test driver, HvS.
Quite an interesting data point this considering each manufacturer previously set times in the 7:26 region. To then set a 7:38 in an independent test…
Other tracks were also compared in the German article, the ZR1 beating out the GT-R’s Hockenheimring laptime (1:09.7 to the GT-R’s 1:10.7) and then the ZR1 losing out to the GT-R in the wet handling course (1:36.8 to the GT-R’s 1:32.4).
Link: Sport Auto Magazine Website
Source: NAGTROC Forums
2011 GT-R Spied Again at Nurburgring – SpecM? Doubt It
Nurburgring stalker extraordinaire KGP Photography has snapped shots of the Nissan GT-R back at Nurburgring this week. The shots clearly show the same stuff we posted back in April 2009 when NAGTROC member Kislik spotted the same car at the ‘ring.
Whats changed since then? Well the rear diffuser seems to have gained a long row of red LED’s which are most likely an update to the European/Australian specification’s rear fog light. The rear spoiler is now black and is possibly revised. Can’t tell exactly in what way.
Most car ‘blogs today are reporting this car to be the 2011 SpecM GT-R but personally, I can’t see much evidence to support that it is anything more than the 2011 facelift GT-R. Anyone else spot something I don’t on this car?
Images: Edmunds Straightline
More Images/Link: Jalopnik Nissan GT-R Spy Photos
Nordring: Toshio Suzuki Tunes the Nissan GT-R with Launch of Own Brand
There’s really nothing like the way Suzuki-san can drive the Nissan GT-R through the many turns of the Nordschleife. The laptimes he sets are secondary to the brute force journey he takes each lap to get there. I asked him myself how he does it and he craftily managed to remain humble.
Recently Suzuki-san decided to put the development know how gained from being the R35 GT-R development test driver go-to guy for quite a handful of years now to further use. He’s setup shop in Iruma, Saitama Prefecture, Japan where he plans to service GT-Rs as well as develop a tuning brand.
The shop is known as Nordring and out front hangs a tribute to the GT-R’s 7:26.70 laptime. Inside the theme continues with the actual Dunlop tires used on the record lap time mounted on displays behind the V35 Skyline VR38 drivetrain test mule. The test mule is one of the more interesting exhibits as this is the first time I’ve seen photos of it since very early testing days. Good to know this piece of history is still kicking around.
Suzuki-san’s Nordring brand has already demonstrated the Nordring Aero Kit during the workshop grand opening event attended by many of the R35 GT-R Club of Japan (including Ado-san, club President who rocked up in his SpecV riding on Neez EI8GHT Eurocross-R wheels).
Further plans include developing an original exhaust and suspension components for the GT-R. We’ll stay tuned and keep you guys posted. Until then check out some photos of the launch event thanks to GTRBlog reader Onkyo who attended the event.
Thanks to Mindlessoath for putting me on the scent of this story.
Link: Nordring Corporation Website
Photos: ONKYO @ Minkara
Nissan GT-R: Nurburgring Rapid Response Vehicle
When you’ve got thousands of tourists attacking your public race track each year you’re going to run into the odd occasion when someone makes an error. If that error gets serious you’re going to want to be able to get to the scene of an incident quickly. On a 20km circuit like the Nordschliefe this is no job for an ordinary fire truck.
So proving to the world it’s not only one of the worlds fastest production cars ever to lap the ‘Ring, it’s now the most practical after receiving a full “fire engine” conversion.
That’s right, the car is fitted with a fire retardant tank fully consuming the rear passenger area, followed by a functional hose reel and equipment bay in the trunk. The car is also kitted out with a full roll cage and carbon fibre Recaro racing seats for safety. This is no joke!
Photographs used with permission.
Images/Source: NissanSportz.com – Is This The World’s Fastest Roadgoing Fire Engine?
Nissan Announce SpecV GT-R for European Market
Nissan has decided to go ahead and setup shop on the new ring boulevard at the Nurburgring in Germany with a new concept store known as “Nissan Sportscars Shop”. On display is a Nissan GT-R, a 370z Nurburgring edition and the European specification Nissan GT-R SpecV.
Sales are expected to begin this year but pricing is not yet known.
Will Nissan let the world know the SpecV Nurburgring laptime at the European SpecV launch? Makes sense to me!
Check the full press release after the jump…
Source: Nissan Motors Australia
Nissan GT-R Does 7:26.7 at the ‘Ring – The Video
This hit my inbox today and seems to be the video of Nissan’s Chief Test Driver, Toshio Suzuki driving the Nissan GT-R to a 7:26.7 laptime at the Nurburgring.
Very nice, now we got that out of the way, let’s hear the SpecV time eh Nissan?
Thanks Adrian for the link.
Gran Turismo 5 E3 Movie Plus More Video Game Goodness
A couple of exciting new tidbits of information regarding the latest upcoming release in the long line of Grant Turismo games. While we’ve all been playing the hell out of GT5 Prologue, it’s feeling more and more limited these days.
GT5 promises to add a lot more for GT-R fans though including the GT500 cars from the SuperGT 2008 series. Unfortunately, exactly how long we have to wait is still unknown as GT5’s release date is not set yet.
Sony and Polyphony also announced a version of Gran Turismo you can put in your pocket with the PSP version, called GT Mobile, to be released later this year. This version will contain the tracks seen in GT4 plus the GT-R. This means you can be tearing up the Nurburgring Nordschleife in your R35 GT-R on your train ride to work.
In other video game GT-R related news, Need for Speed SHIFT promises to be the best NFS game yet. The trailer has quite a bit of footage of a stickered up GT-R SpecV on the track. Will be good to see how it turns out.
Link: Discuss this over @ NAGTROC
Link: You can download the GT5 HD Movie at Gran-Turismo.com
Screenshots: Courtesy of GTPlanet.net
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