Thursday 17th May 2012

Chris Harris video: GT-R Track Pack vs 911 Turbo

Track Pack equipped Nissan GT-R gives Harris the perfect excuse to pitch it against its 911 Turbo nemesis

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Track Pack, as descriptions of a motor car go, is one of the more straightforward. There is probably a list of equipment in every PHer's head which would fit into an imaginary 'Track Pack'.

GT-R was benchmarked against Turbo

Strangely, Nissan has just released its GT-R TrackPack, and I don't think its specification includes any of the stuff we'd have listed. No sticky tyres, no roll cage, no larger brakes, no aerofoil.

In fact the £85,540 Track Pack is actually pretty similar to the £10,000 cheaper vanilla GT-R. There are different seats, snazzy, lighter wheels and some new suspension settings. But that's pretty much it.

What grabs my attention is the list price. The first UK R35 GT-R I drove was £52,995 - this one is over £30K more and it is mechanically little different. Yes, the 490hp is now 550hp, and there are a load of upgrades, but most of those come with successive modelyear improvements. Where once the GT-R was an absolute bargain, that is no longer the case.

Track Pack Nissan GT-R ... on a track!

Should we have tested it next to a GT3? Possibly. But you've had enough GT3 content from me. Besides, with 4WD, paddles, two turbos, four seats and no cage, the GT-R shares more with the Turbo, on paper, than it does the GT car.

I didn't really warm to the direct injection 997Turbos when they were launched in 2009/2010. I just thought they were rather soulless devices capable of terrifying you through sheer speed but, once you'd experienced that trick, there wasn't much else to savour. But with time I'm warming to their charms - this car was so fast on the road it needed a careful touch and the 997 package feels so small after the GT-R.

It would have been nice to have a dry track, but sadly the excellent fellows at CircuitDays couldn't quite control the weather.

Turbo probably a closer match to GT-R

Before the evening event hosted by Circuit Days on the Indy circuit, I had a couple of very wet, slippery hours on the full Grand Prix track at anMSV event. For some reason I had never driven it before - what a brilliant, brilliant place it is.

Enjoy the vid.

 

 

 

 

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[David87]

Haven't watched the video yet, but I sat in one of these Track Pack GT-Rs at the Sunday Service at the weekend. It was amazing. Two points, though:

1. Your extra £10k doesn't seem to get you much.
2. It had the weirdest, most Japanese-y seats I've ever seen.

[David87]

myhandle said:

It appears to be a Turbo S rather than a Turbo as in the copy - I believe you can still order a new 997 Turbo S for a few months yet. Perhaps there is room for one final 997 variant - a Turbo S with the engine in GT2 RS tune? It can be done, Porsche, it can be done.

I will name it the 911 Turbo SS.

[David87]

625GTR said:

How is it that Mr. Harris is driving around on a track day with a tee shirt on - surely he was told by the officials at Brands to cover his arms and as a serious driver should know better himself!!

Because it's a closed-cockpit car.

[David87]

sw1000xg said:

Good to see at lot of none biasedness to the GTR and a good balance of for and against comments!

But I am a GTR Fanatic, aand will never be a Porsche fan. They look poor, the GT3 looks stupid with that rear wing but they do sound good. Better than the GTR? Not sure but they do sound good!

Chris saying about putting 10K mods in being faster? Mods will never out perform a factory designed GTR!

Straights yes.

Track times no...

I do see a problem with 10K for the track pack. The rims no more than say 2-3K for those maybe another 1K for the new grippy stuff, 2K for the suspension tweaks and stuff... But where are the better brakes and tires?

http://www.litchfieldimports.co.uk/nissan_gtr_brak...

This is what is going to happen to them... THEY SUCK!

They either need CC brakes, or these babies AS AN OPTION...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar8jibQoAi0

Hopfully they will get some good results from the Nurburgring 24H GTR and will adapt it for this type of GTR in the future!

Judging by this post, I'm going to bet that you're ~14 years old.