RE: Nissan GT-R MY14 and NISMO: Driven

[Lefty]

tjlees said:

A lovely car but ...

A jumped up Datsun for £120k - what happened to nissan punching above its weight at half the price?? Even the beetle is losing its way at £145k and 1.6t :-(

There are lots and lots of much better secondhand cars at this price - 2010 Gtr for around £40k and turbo s for £80k for instance

Well come on, comparing new vs 2nd-hand is a bit silly isn't it?

[tjlees]

Lefty said:

tjlees said:

A lovely car but ...

A jumped up Datsun for £120k - what happened to nissan punching above its weight at half the price?? Even the beetle is losing its way at £145k and 1.6t :-(

There are lots and lots of much better secondhand cars at this price - 2010 Gtr for around £40k and turbo s for £80k for instance

Well come on, comparing new vs 2nd-hand is a bit silly isn't it?

Maybe, but it does show that even here the gtr is definitely half the price bargain and punching well above its weight. With the £80k saved you can put this towards a Litchfield conversion - a much better deal imho. at that price i could forgive the looks, weight and ps3 interior

[toppstuff]

tjlees said:

Maybe, but it does show that even here the gtr is definitely half the price bargain and punching well above its weight. With the £80k saved you can put this towards a Litchfield conversion - a much better deal imho. at that price i could forgive the looks, weight and ps3 interior

I think for many people a used GTR and a Litchfield package would make more sense.

But the NISMO GT-R is special. They are only making 200 a year and at least a third of those are for the Japanese market. It is therefore quite collectible IMO and sufficiently different enough from a regular GT-R to be worth the money for a small number of enthusiasts.

Put it this way - if it costs around 120k, I cannot think of another car I would rather have for the money if I wanted something new, super rare and unusual.

[loveice]

tjlees said:

Not with a low quality ps3 interior it wouldn't. If you want left field and relatively cheap - go british beef ..

They should make a coupe/hardtop version of SR8.

[mrclav]

toppstuff said:

I am not the sort of person who wears a cashmere sweater over my shoulders

Not quite sure I get the point of this statement. Are you saying that a particular type of person who does that isn't cool?

toppstuff said:

And I am not a football player. Or a music producer.

Never cared for the "beautiful game" myself (but have produced records). Are you implying that all who kick a ball or frequent a recording studio cannot appreciate the GTR?

toppstuff said:

Most car companies seem to want to cater for that market and people who want to be in that market. There is too much of the footballer or Peter Andre about owning a Ferrari these days.

Most car companies seem to want to make money. Don't believe me? Remember that company 9ff who made those mad Porsches for example? Proper "driver" cars, right? Not aimed at footballers. Look what happened to them...

toppstuff said:

And then you get this GT-R. It is not very fashionable. It is a Nissan. It does not pretend to be anything else. It is not some badge-engineered, shared platform, aspirational "thing" that people choose based on brand or fashion.

These cars get on with the job and, considering they started work on this design years ago and the first R35 came out in 2008, it is amazing that other manufacturers have still only just started to catch up.

Yes, it's a Nissan but you're wrong regarding it's trendiness. It may not be fashionable to you personally but I know there's a worldwide fan base for it. It most certainly is an aspirational car although not maybe by the people you'd necessarily think.

toppstuff said:

This is an engineers car. A geeks car.

Yes it is and I'm just as much a geek as I am a musician. The two aren't mutually exclusive you know!

toppstuff said:

And IMO it is very, very cool.

The one thing we actually agree on.

toppstuff said:

After all, everyone gets a 911.

I didn't. They've become too big - I'd love a Singer though...

Correct me if I'm wrong but your attitude towards car makers seems entirely based on the supposed type of people who buy them - the only people who buy and run Porsches, GTR's and Ferrari's etc are people who can actually afford to buy and run them for the most part and then usually have more than one of each; if to you that means music producers and footballers then so be it. If they didn't, would you then moan the demise of said exotica?

[toppstuff]

mrclav said:

I didn't. They've become too big - I'd love a Singer though...

Correct me if I'm wrong but your attitude towards car makers seems entirely based on the supposed type of people who buy them - the only people who buy and run Porsches, GTR's and Ferrari's etc are people who can actually afford to buy and run them for the most part and then usually have more than one of each; if to you that means music producers and footballers then so be it. If they didn't, would you then moan the demise of said exotica?

I'm merely saying that most car makers seek a fairly predictable and increasingly homogenised fan base these days. Most supercars have a significant percentage of buyers who aren't really enthusiasts. It wasn't the same in the past.

Most supercars are being designed and targeted for a more brand obsessed market. The big car makers in the world now collect car brands and use them to remodel their existing car range. The big brands have less and less in common with their history. I just don't identify with them nowadays as I used to.

I'm not knocking these brands, they are in business to sell as many cars as they can. Therefore they are sold as fashion accessories just as much as they are as cars for enthusiasts. But I think they lose something in the process.

To these old eyes, the Nissan GTR seems a bit distinct from the rest of the performance car world, eschewing the need to be beautiful in the normal sense. I like that.

[E60M5]

toppstuff said:

It is what a range-topper is about though isn't it. Look at the Porsche GT3 RS. Very gaudy and loud. The Nismo looks conservative compared to that.

Conservative with straight edges, a super aggressive front bumper/splitter (its main function seems to be to make the car somehow even uglier..) and a huge wing off of rear? People flock to these things, wouldn't call it subtle enough to do the shopping in but then again, not like you'd do that in a GT3 either. If you're going to have a "track" ready car and brag about the numbers, why not have something shouty to shout about? Better deal to buy standard GT-R with Litchfield/Cobb tune etc.

This just makes the car look even uglier. If Nurburgring times all one cares about, just buy a Radical. Car just seems like another bragging point for the fanboys. Wonder if it's any good to drive on the road with its massive size.

Edited by E60M5 on Sunday 24th November 23:19

[Dagnut]

Uncle John said:

GTR for me.

The enthusiasts choice.

I agree with this, any time I've talked to a GTR owner they've know their stuff.