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In about a minute, Inside Line will be the first media outlet to drive the 2009 Nissan GT-R on American soil.
Well, sort of. We'll be hitting speeds approaching 4 mph.
Two Nissan GT-Rs, one red and one silver, are stowed behind the TBWA/Chiat/Day building here just north of the Los Angeles International Airport. Paul Hawson, Nissan's product planner for the GT-R, will drive the red one to the crowd waiting out front, and we will pilot the silver one behind him. We aren't going to be driving at more than walking speed, but we're planning to rev the cars a bit to show off their voices.
"Just don't forget to shift into neutral when you blip the throttle," Hawson tells us, accurately predicting that we haven't thought that far ahead. "And just leave the key in your pocket. I'll get it from you when the cars are parked."
Nissan agreed to bring the two GT-R preproduction vehicles out for an exclusive public showing sponsored by Inside Line. We wanted to give the Nissan nuts of Los Angeles a chance to see, hear, smell and even touch the car of their dreams on this overcast Saturday in November.
Seventy-two hours before showtime we tossed the time and place on a few forums and invited anyone and everyone to the Inside Line Nissan GT-R Party. We told them to be at Chiat/Day on Saturday at 3 p.m. And so they came. In packs. A sea of hard-core GT-R fanatics flooded the parking lot of Nissan's longtime advertising agency. Some 200 rabid Nissan enthusiasts eager to probe and experience the GT-R in ways the velvet ropes at the Los Angeles auto show (taking place 20 miles to the east) just wouldn't allow.
The Fever
The crowd even includes well-known Nissan enthusiasts, including Steve Mitchell, an R32 Skyline owner who is the proprietor of M-WORKZ in Gardena, California; and ex-Nissan engineer Mike Kojima and the crew from RB Motorsports in City of Industry, California, a company that helps make the Nissan Skyline GT-R more available to U.S. drivers. Dave Coleman, ex-engineering editor at Sport Compact Car, even made an appearance.
And they brought their cars. There are Skyline GT-Rs from way deep into the early 1970s, 240SXs wearing JDM "Silvia" badges, wicked Zs and ancient 510s powered by everything except cold fusion. If there is one word to describe the crowd at Chiat/Day, that word is frenzied.
"I'm on a couple of lists already," explains Justin Sykes, 27, who worked for now-defunct MotoRex when that company was importing GT-Rs into North America, and now works at a Lexus dealer. "Literally, I wake up in the morning and this is what gets me through the day — looking forward to this car. It's like the one thing I'm keeping up on and, you know, reading up on."
"I'm kind of emotionally involved in the excitement of seeing it in person," says Chad Glass, 37, who draws movie storyboards for a living and moderates Internet message boards for the North American GT-R Owners' Club.
There isn't a soul in the crowd who hasn't already seen the GT-R orbiting the Nürburgring in 7 minutes, 38 seconds on YouTube. They all know the new twin-turbocharged, 3.8-liter VR38 V6 will be rated at 473 horsepower, that the dual-clutch six-speed transaxle is mounted between the rear wheels, and that the 20-inch wheels are wrapped in run-flat tires.
Obsession, it turns out, has found a new poster car.
The Sound of the Future
The GT-R is not small. At 183.1 inches long, it's 7.5 inches longer than a 2008 Chevrolet Corvette and about 2 inches wider and almost 5 inches taller. Not only is this car supposed to outperform the Porsche 911 Turbo, but it'll do it while casting a much larger shadow. Heck, the driver-side door feels about the same size as an entire 911 by itself.
Like so many cars today, the GT-R starts with the push of a button — in this case, a red button just below the console-mounted shift lever. This button doesn't have to be held down, just pressed once and the engine control computer runs the routine embedded in some ROM chip that assesses the conditions and starts the car appropriately. The GT-R's engine doesn't so much roar to life as it purrs into consciousness.
The idle of the GT-R's twin-turbo V6 is subdued; there's no crackling, spitting or induction wheeze, and the exhaust burbles only slightly through its four outlet pipes. This is an engine, after all, that blows directly into two large turbochargers that muffle much of the low-speed noise all by themselves.
We could have blipped the throttle a million times, but there was just no way to make the GT-R loud. As this is a production car, Nissan obviously had to be mindful of noise regulations when designing the exhaust system, but did it have to make it this quiet? At least what noise the GT-R does make is powerful and satisfying.
The seats themselves are mostly leather, but the center section is finished with artificial suede to add some grip and comfort in hot weather. How will the seats grip a driver during hard cornering? Don't know. But in the rocket blast from zero to 4 mph, they feel fine.
Driving Into the Crowd
It used to be that when something exciting happened, flashbulbs would go off. Now what happens is a bunch of people hold up their cell phones to snap photos or record video. It may not be as dramatic, but it's still pretty neat.
At first the crowd is a bit awestruck — almost scared to approach something they've dreamed about for so long. But once that moment passes, six heads wedge their way through the car's open passenger-side window.
"Run through the menus," one indistinct face says, as arms reach for the multifunction display atop the dash. "I hear you can vote for American Idol through the screen," some other voice jokes. "To hell with that, I just want to watch porn," adds another.
"The full bulk, breadth and muscularity of the car is not quite transmitted in a photograph," says Chad Glass upon seeing the beast up close. "It's much thicker, muscular and beefier than I can see in a photograph. It has a real presence. It's a gorgeous car."
Alongside the upright R32, R33 and R34 Skylines on display, the angular and sleek R35 GT-R looks like a starship among boxcars: not just another evolutionary development of the GT-R tradition, but a leap forward. "It's a muscle," says Kevin Nealy. "It makes a statement like none of the GT-Rs have made before. When you drove up in it, my mouth dropped to the ground. The pictures do not do this car justice. You must see it in person — it looks totally different."
Feel and Touch
At first, Nissan would not agree to let anybody sit in the cars.
"We can leave the windows down, but that's it," was the line drawn by Tim Gallagher, Nissan's West Coast public relations machine, and product-planner Hawson supported him. "These cars will need to be photographed soon, so we can't risk any damage." But we knew there was a chance if the crowd was cool.
About an hour in, we made our move. Hawson agreed, but with three rules. One: He would be in the passenger seat. Two: Gallagher would stand at the driver's door to control the crowd. Three: Nobody goes in the red car, which has an easily soiled light-tan interior.
Done. And so for the next three hours, more than 100 people took their turn behind the wheel of the silver GT-R, with Hawson in the passenger seat giving them a tour of the car's controls.
They pushed the buttons, scrolled through the various screens of the car's multifunction display and adjusted the driver seat to their individual preference. It may be a stretch to call it the thrill of a lifetime, but sitting in the GT-R proved to be certainly more than anybody expected.
"That was cool," says Coleman, who owns an R32 GT-R, two S13 Silvias and a 510 rally car. "You can't do that at the auto show," he adds as he climbs out of the GT-R.
Never Enough
The GT-R heritage only starts with what comes from the factory. Owners almost invariably twist these cars into something both faster and, well, scarier. In fact, every Skyline, Silvia, Z and 510 that made an appearance at our party had been modified in some way.
"Nissan obviously doesn't want anyone to play with them," says Sean Morris, who is one of the foremost GT-R tuners in America. "But I see that as a challenge. They say the ECU is 'unhackable.' I say, 'That's just a couple words.'"
One mechanical feature virtually every prospective GT-R tuner is eager to change is the exhaust system. "The exhaust is a cluster," says Morris. "The stupid four-exhaust-tip thing is ugly. It goes two-into-one and then splits out and crosses over and there are two mufflers and then it splits into four. I'd cut it all off and just do, like, one single 4-inch pipe straight out."
Chad Glass, on the other hand, isn't quite so ready to hack apart the exhaust system. "I think some people are going to want a single-exit exhaust," he says over the hum of the crowd. "I personally don't think that will look good. I think the way Nissan designed it, with dual outlets on each side, is a totally harmonious design. But some people are more into performance than they are aesthetics. And I want to have both."
Internet GT-R forums are already overloaded with illustrations of proposed body kits for the new car and rampant speculation about how to turn a car that's already a rocket sled into a time-warping thrill machine.
Nissan is going to sell the GT-R essentially one way. The buyers are going to rip it apart and rebuild it a million different ways. If, that is, Nissan sells a million GT-Rs.
The Frustration Station
With most of the pizza gone and darkness falling early, by 6 p.m. the event is winding down. Nissan starts passing out GT-R T-shirts that honor the machine's now infamous Nürburgring performance, and a final few get their chance to sit behind the wheel.
As the assembled older Skyline GT-Rs head for the exits, the night air fills with the high-rpm sounds of multiple RB26DETTs finding their rev limiters. This doesn't exactly ingratiate us with the neighbors. Neither do the subsequent four-gear burnouts down Grovsenor Boulevard, but who could blame these guys for wanting to let off some steam?
Sure, we gave them a closer look at the new GT-R than ever before, but only we got to drive the car. And that means they're in for six more months of frustration.
Inside Line Throws a GT-R Party
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