Thursday 9th April 2009

Nissan GT-R Club Sport Coming To Europe

NISMO tuning package sheds weight, improves handling and may add power

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The Club Sport package of GT-R upgrades developed by Nissan’s race and tuning arm NISMO should be offered to UK customers by Nissan dealers next year.

NISMO GT-R Club Sport is coming soon

Currently the Club Sport package is only available in Japan, but NISMO president Yuichi Sanada told PH that discussions with the European dealer network are underway, with a view to making the kit available here.

The Japanese Club Sport GT-R package is focused on reducing weight and up-rating handling. It features RAYS forged aluminium wheels – 20x9.5ins front (+45mm offset) and 20x10.5 rears (+25mm offset) - shod with Bridgestone REO70R run-flat tyres. It also features Bilstein Damptronic electrically-adjustable suspension struts, a titanium rear exhaust section that apparently saves around 5kgs and a carbon fibre undertray.

Kit includes wheels, tyres and shockers

There’s no power increase included in the Japanese kit, but a NISMO tweaked ECU is under consideration for the European version, although Sanada-san wouldn’t confirm what sort of power output is being explored. We did ask, but his wry response along the lines of ‘it’s already got 480bhp, how much do you want?’ seemed to imply any power increase would be relatively limited.

Other mods to the Japanese spec Club Sport include lightened carbon fibre seats with no electrics, and the package costs the equivalent of about £30k – although UK prices and specs may differ.

The Club Sport will be NISMO’s first foray into offering tuning parts through Nissan dealers (under warranty) in Europe, and the move is designed to coincide with the first year of competition for the NISMO developed GT-R racer in the new GT1 category next year.

Titanium exhaust and carbon undertray

It’s possible that additional NISMO activity will follow here as the brand becomes more recognised, although Nissan has already stated that UK 370Z buyers will not be offered NISMO parts through main dealer channels. That could all change if the GT-R package proves successful next year.

 

NISMO's Euro launch should start in 2010

[dr.pepper]

Now we know that the Yen values can't be converted directly and UK pricing has not been announced. With this in mind this kit still seems to be overvalued.

I think it might actually be cheaper to buy a full Mines suspension kit, Ti catback with Hi flow cats and Bride carbon fibre seats.

I would be very interested to hear the official UK pricing.