RE: Nissan's Track-Special GT-R
Tuesday 3rd August 2010
In a spectacular blurring of the boundaries between racing car, road car and track car, Nissan has created this - the Track Club Edition GT-R.
Inside, there are four-point harnesses and a fire extinguisher system, while the 20-inch Rays wheels from the Spec M make an appearance, combined with a set of Dunlop Direzza slicks.
Nissan's Track-Special GT-R
Nissan creates track-hardened GT-R for exclusive club
The new car is the result of Nissan's desire to create a bespoke track car for members of an exclusive driving club. That has now been born, and is called, in a wonderfully Japanese-sounding way, The Prestige Club of GT-R.
The car itself - born of collaboration between Nissan, NISMO, NOVA Engineering and Nordring tuning - has undergone a fair bit of tweakery. This includes - amongst plenty else - reprogramming of the traction control, ABS and VDC (stability system), two-way adjustable Bilstein dampers and revised upper front links, and a new front lip spoiler.
If you fancy a go at what you might call the Nissan version of the Ferrari 599XX, you'll have to a) be in Japan and b) chuck a fair old chunk of cash Nissan's way. The car itself will set you back the yen equivalent of £75k (and bear in mind that cars in Japan tend to be a fair bit cheaper than their UK relatives), while membership of the 'Prestige Club' will cost you £14.5k plus more than £7k in annual membership fees...
Discussion
I don't understand the point of it. For £75k do you actually have the ability to drive it home after a track day battering? Will you race against other fellow "Club GT-R" members? Personally I would buy a "boggo" GT-R and spend the pennies I would save back on the car and have an ultimate road legal/track day hybrid!
No mention of whether this £75K "track edition" does anything to solve the two main reasons why a standard GTR-R doesn't make a great track car.
1) The weight. A GT-R has a curb weight of 1740 kg's which is too heavy for a dedicated track car as all that weight will play merry hell with brakes, tyres and other components which brings me nicely onto
2) Transmission Temps. Go over a certain temp and you risk blowing your warranty at a minimum or blowing your gearbox. These temp levels can easily be reached and exceeded after a couple of hot laps which will mean you'll need to pull in and wait untill it cools down again. I'd like to see them explain that one to the customers who have paid to have the ultimate GT-R trackday experience.
So unless the extra money has gone onto drastically beefing up the cooling\transmission and dumping at least 300kg's of weight it'll be no more than a 1 lap wonder.
A standard GT-R is a great road car but not a very useable track car unfortunately.
1) The weight. A GT-R has a curb weight of 1740 kg's which is too heavy for a dedicated track car as all that weight will play merry hell with brakes, tyres and other components which brings me nicely onto
2) Transmission Temps. Go over a certain temp and you risk blowing your warranty at a minimum or blowing your gearbox. These temp levels can easily be reached and exceeded after a couple of hot laps which will mean you'll need to pull in and wait untill it cools down again. I'd like to see them explain that one to the customers who have paid to have the ultimate GT-R trackday experience.
So unless the extra money has gone onto drastically beefing up the cooling\transmission and dumping at least 300kg's of weight it'll be no more than a 1 lap wonder.
A standard GT-R is a great road car but not a very useable track car unfortunately.
All the top end marques and some hypercar rivalling saloon manufacturers do similar things with their cars in terms of highly overpriced add-ons otherwise known as 'money for old rope', why not Nissan!!
The price of the car for what you're getting a la 'factory fit' actually doesn't sound so bad by itself but then you have to fork out umpteen thousands in cash for the privelage of paying them £75K for the car and for being part of their exclusive little club. I have problems putting the words 'Nissan' and 'Exclusive' together in the same paragraph never mind sentence. (cough)whataloadafeckinballax(cough)
If you can afford to be foolishly parted from your money then so be it.
The price of the car for what you're getting a la 'factory fit' actually doesn't sound so bad by itself but then you have to fork out umpteen thousands in cash for the privelage of paying them £75K for the car and for being part of their exclusive little club. I have problems putting the words 'Nissan' and 'Exclusive' together in the same paragraph never mind sentence. (cough)whataloadafeckinballax(cough)
If you can afford to be foolishly parted from your money then so be it.
Anubis said:
...or alternatively just buy a GTR here in the UK and put it on one of our tracks like most would. Job done.
+1...and with the money left you can still get slicks and suapension and some other stuff.
But I wonder if it's faster around the 'ring than the 911 turbo...
Not that the 'ring times are relevant to me.
Guvernator said:
No mention of whether this £75K "track edition" does anything to solve the two main reasons why a standard GTR-R doesn't make a great track car.
1) The weight. A GT-R has a curb weight of 1740 kg's which is too heavy for a dedicated track car as all that weight will play merry hell with brakes, tyres and other components which brings me nicely onto
2) Transmission Temps. Go over a certain temp and you risk blowing your warranty at a minimum or blowing your gearbox. These temp levels can easily be reached and exceeded after a couple of hot laps which will mean you'll need to pull in and wait untill it cools down again. I'd like to see them explain that one to the customers who have paid to have the ultimate GT-R trackday experience.
So unless the extra money has gone onto drastically beefing up the cooling\transmission and dumping at least 300kg's of weight it'll be no more than a 1 lap wonder.
A standard GT-R is a great road car but not a very useable track car unfortunately.
some b1) The weight. A GT-R has a curb weight of 1740 kg's which is too heavy for a dedicated track car as all that weight will play merry hell with brakes, tyres and other components which brings me nicely onto
2) Transmission Temps. Go over a certain temp and you risk blowing your warranty at a minimum or blowing your gearbox. These temp levels can easily be reached and exceeded after a couple of hot laps which will mean you'll need to pull in and wait untill it cools down again. I'd like to see them explain that one to the customers who have paid to have the ultimate GT-R trackday experience.
So unless the extra money has gone onto drastically beefing up the cooling\transmission and dumping at least 300kg's of weight it'll be no more than a 1 lap wonder.
A standard GT-R is a great road car but not a very useable track car unfortunately.
ks spoken here, but to a degree you are right. The GTR isn't really a track car in the sense of say a Gt3 or a caterham, but its no where near as bad as you are making out.Anyone with a modicum of track experience or sense will not destroy their brakes or tyres with sensible warming up and cooling off laps.
Transmission temps- you do NOT blow your warranty at all. If you exceed 120 you will need to get the tranny oil changed before 1800 miles. So far I have never heard of any Uk owner with a blown tranny due to track use. I drove bedford autodrome hard recently- the car pretty much annihilated every other car there. I was out for at least 6-7 laps at a time,- 4-5 of which were hot laps of a 3.7 miles circuit.- never exceeded 109 degrees, brakes are A ok, Discs perfect and tyres still have plenty of tread. Took the car to nissan for a free flickR download and no problems, were recorded.
It makes a brilliant occasional track car and yes its not cheap but the performance and feel are on another level.
frosted said:
If for that fee you can enjoy japans best circuits for free then it's a bargain surelly ?
Quite a crap article really , no performance times nor do we get an idea of what this club is about . Just talk in pound coins which really shows whoever wrote the article is a Porsche man
Quite a crap article really , no performance times nor do we get an idea of what this club is about . Just talk in pound coins which really shows whoever wrote the article is a Porsche man
Although it does sound like a lot of money, there is no more information given on this. Depending on what is included it may well be worth every penny!peterpeter said:
Guvernator said:
No mention of whether this £75K "track edition" does anything to solve the two main reasons why a standard GTR-R doesn't make a great track car.
1) The weight. A GT-R has a curb weight of 1740 kg's which is too heavy for a dedicated track car as all that weight will play merry hell with brakes, tyres and other components which brings me nicely onto
2) Transmission Temps. Go over a certain temp and you risk blowing your warranty at a minimum or blowing your gearbox. These temp levels can easily be reached and exceeded after a couple of hot laps which will mean you'll need to pull in and wait untill it cools down again. I'd like to see them explain that one to the customers who have paid to have the ultimate GT-R trackday experience.
So unless the extra money has gone onto drastically beefing up the cooling\transmission and dumping at least 300kg's of weight it'll be no more than a 1 lap wonder.
A standard GT-R is a great road car but not a very useable track car unfortunately.
some b1) The weight. A GT-R has a curb weight of 1740 kg's which is too heavy for a dedicated track car as all that weight will play merry hell with brakes, tyres and other components which brings me nicely onto
2) Transmission Temps. Go over a certain temp and you risk blowing your warranty at a minimum or blowing your gearbox. These temp levels can easily be reached and exceeded after a couple of hot laps which will mean you'll need to pull in and wait untill it cools down again. I'd like to see them explain that one to the customers who have paid to have the ultimate GT-R trackday experience.
So unless the extra money has gone onto drastically beefing up the cooling\transmission and dumping at least 300kg's of weight it'll be no more than a 1 lap wonder.
A standard GT-R is a great road car but not a very useable track car unfortunately.
ks spoken here, but to a degree you are right. The GTR isn't really a track car in the sense of say a Gt3 or a caterham, but its no where near as bad as you are making out.Anyone with a modicum of track experience or sense will not destroy their brakes or tyres with sensible warming up and cooling off laps.
Transmission temps- you do NOT blow your warranty at all. If you exceed 120 you will need to get the tranny oil changed before 1800 miles. So far I have never heard of any Uk owner with a blown tranny due to track use. I drove bedford autodrome hard recently- the car pretty much annihilated every other car there. I was out for at least 6-7 laps at a time,- 4-5 of which were hot laps of a 3.7 miles circuit.- never exceeded 109 degrees, brakes are A ok, Discs perfect and tyres still have plenty of tread. Took the car to nissan for a free flickR download and no problems, were recorded.
It makes a brilliant occasional track car and yes its not cheap but the performance and feel are on another level.
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