[Video] Nissan GT-R Nismo Review | GRR
The R35 Nissan GT-R is now, can you believe it, 14 years old. It’s true, the car was launched in 2007 even before the fifth Gran Turismo game came out. It had been Gran Turismo that first really launched the then Skyline GT-R into the consciousness of teenagers around the world.
Back then, certainly in Europe, we didn’t see many quick Japanese cars, so the list of them on Gran Turismo was incredibly exciting to us. It helped cement the Nissan Skyline R32, 33 and 34 into euro-minds forever. The R35, by then having dropped the Skyline tag, was perhaps the first car strictly designed for that generation that grew up with PlayStations and GT.
It was a great car, underpinned by incredible traction control and other electronic systems, alongside all-wheel-drive, that allowed it to do things that cars of its price range just couldn’t do – humbling many Italian supercars. But now, those controlling monitors are everywhere, the GT-R is a bit long in the tooth and the latest one, the GT-R Nismo, is around £180,000. It’s probably a last hurrah for the GT-R, but the question is, has it outstayed its welcome, or is this the defining version of a much loved friend?