Nissan has taken the covers off of their latest factory tuned GT-R, the Spec V, and unfortunately this model has been uncovered to be the slowest of the R-35s. Despite this, Nissan is still developing the GT-R in order to release an upgraded version that they are calling the Series II. This vehicle will receive an upgraded suspension; a retuned transmission, stickier rubber and a 3.5kW increase. Toshio Suzuki, Nissan’s head test driver, told GT-R blog that the modifications made to the Series II should allow the vehicle to navigate the 33 left turns and 40 right turns that make up the Nürburgring in about 5 seconds less than the current model.
The Nürburgring’s Nordschleife circuit is a 20.64km loop in western Germany that has been used since 1927 to test man and machine. Since 1983 automobile manufacturers and the media alike have been recording lap times on the circuit’s current configuration. The lap times are a benchmark for a vehicle’s performance, and are used to evaluate and compare the fastest vehicles in the world.
The GT-R has some history with the “Green Hell”. The R-33 Skyline GT-R was the first production car to lap the Ring in less than 8 minutes. More recently the Japanese car maker has had some words with the Porsche camp concerning lap times. In every video of track tests of the preproduction GT-R there is a Porsche 911 Turbo following not far behind. The 997 Turbo was the benchmark that Nissan had set for the performance of their supercar.
When Nissan announced an initial lap time of 7m38s the people at Porsche took notice. With some more tuning Nissan engineers were able to bring the time down to 7m29s. When this happened Porsche purchased a GT-R and put it head to head against their products. Porsche did not use their normal driver former World Rally Champion Walter Rohrl, but instead a Nürburgring expert. They managed to run a lap time of 7m54s in the GT-R, a 7m38s in the 911 Turbo and a 7m34s in their 395kW GT2. It was then that August Achleitner, product chief for the 911, called foul. He stated that the lap time is impossible from the stock GT-R on stock tires. Nissan retaliated by posting the video of their 7m29s run on the internet and offered Porsche an opportunity to attend driving school.
The Series II GT-R would hypothetically bring the lap time down to 7m24s. Ahead of the Ferrari Enzo, right between a Pagani Zonda and Maserati MC12 supercars.
Adapted from TopSpeed
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