In the late 1880s, George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company, invented roll film as well as cameras designed to use such film. To this day he is still celebrated for his ingenuity in bringing photography to the mainstream.
Many years from now, the annals of history will show that it was Nissan who brought speed to the masses, with a legendary car named the GT-R. Ironically, it was Kodak in its early days that coined the marketing phrase, "You press the button, we do the rest.” For though Nissan’s product briefing states that, "The GT-R offers supercar performance to a broad range of customers for the first time without intimidation," they may as well have said, “You stamp on the pedal, we’ll do the rest,” considering how easy it is to drive this car fast. What's more, this relatively inexpensive Playstation-generation supercar can actually keep up with a Ferrari F430 in 0-100km/h performance, quarter-mile time and lateral grip.
But retail prices aside, it is decisively the manner or rather the effortlessness with which it delivers such performance that makes this car so fundamentally innovative. It achieves this through some serious Japanese electronic wizardry. Constantly computing which specific wheels to feed the power to by continually monitoring steering angle, lateral and transverse acceleration, speed, tire slip, road surface, yaw rate, and so on, allows you to access every single smidgen of power at any single moment.
This car is complete in every way. A fantastic chassis developed in conjunction with Lotus, an adept dual-clutch six speed gearbox specifically mated to a brilliant handmade engine, powerful Brembo brakes and a well sorted suspension set-up with independent double-wishbones in the front and a multi-link rear setup using a tailored Bilstein's DampTronic system.
But given this car’s aspirations, it is quite disconcerting how the exhaust noise is normal, the ride is normal, even the steering is normal. And most bizarrely of all, even if the driver is ‘normal’, it will still go like stink. Therefore in developing a supercar for the masses, Nissan essentially removed from the equation the most inconsistent factor of all, the driver. Go figure.
Vehicle Nissan GT-R
Price 76,480 USD
Stats 480bhp, 3.8litre V6, 314 km/h top speed, 0-100km/h in 3.5 secs
Why Could be nicknamed a baby Veyron and it still wouldn’t disappoint
www.nissan.com
