A Bargain--Of Sorts

As usual, Killboy captures one of the car's better angles perfectly.

Hotshoe and I visited a Nissan dealership before our Monthly Pasta Blowout.  We were struck by how boring the offerings are, compared to the excitement around the Datsun 510 and 240Z years ago. Nissan stores used to have interesting cars--at least one or two.  Even in the '90's.

The store we visited had one, tucked away in a corner: a GT-R.  Last fall at an Autobahn Country Club HSAX, I watched a GT-R mop the floor with Corvettes.  None of the 'Vettes was a C 6, but one was a        C 5 Z-06.  At the corner I worked, the GT-R was faster on approach, ridiculously faster thru, faster on exit, and faster down the next straight.  It was, by far, the fastest street car that I've personally seen driven in anger.

Besides the 3.8 liter twin-turbo V-6, a GT-R comes with a 6-speed transaxle, paddle-shifted via a twin clutch, and all-wheel-drive split 60-40 via three differentials.  Plus "the usual:" 3-piston calipers up front gripping huge ventilated discs inside 20-inchers.  The car we saw had high-performance Dunlops. I don't know if these all-singing, all-dancing techno-cars are fun to drive.  We seem to have a hung jury of video road testers on that question.  But at $110,000, the GT-R is the cheapest supercar you can get.   

Which raises an interesting point: how do you buy a GT-R in Chicagoland?  The salesman we talked to said they're on a kind of allocation from Nissan: "Sell this one and we'll send you another in due course."  Some dealerships aren't excited about floor-planning a car worth five Altimas.  "The GT-R we had before this one sat for three months until one day an MD just walked in and said 'I'll take it.'"

So bring $110,000 and it's yours.  The one Hotshoe and I looked at was a nice shade of dark metallic blue with a black leather interior trimmed in red or orange.  I'd have preferred a different interior.  But don't worry about color or a different interior: what you see is what you will buy.