Angels don’t start singing when you spot a Nissan GT-R. Inside and out, the car looks anything but heavenly. Even in the so-called Comfort mode, it rides like a New York City subway car, shuddering over bumps and clattering from station to station. The engine sounds like a demonically possessed household appliance. The car weighs a ton – nearly two tons, actually – and understeers accordingly. The video-game vibe is so pervasive that a conventional manual transmission isn’t even offered.
And you know what? We’re still naming the Nissan GT-R Automobile Magazine’s 2009 Automobile of the year.
Nissan’s newest dream machine is the first Japanese supercar to call out the opposition – we’re talking to you, Porsche – and whip its butt on its home turf at the Nürburgring’s Nordschleife. It’s also the suddenly attainable object of desire for a generation of enthusiasts who grew up driving slammed Honda Civics, watching Video Option, and playing Grand Turismo 2/3/4/5. For decades, previous versions of the GT-R – sold as the Skyline GT-R but known for good reason as Godzilla – have been icons in Japan, but they were never exported to the United States. Now we know what we were missing, and man, are we happy that we’ve been invited to the party.
