Full circle with Nissan’s R35 GTR

THE LATEST R35 GTR will be the star of the Nissan booth at the Philippine International Motor show this week.

As a motoring journalist, I have the opportunity to drive the newest and latest cars all over the world. It’s a great job, but a tough one as well.

There are cars that I’ve driven that make me weep, because the experience was truly life-changing. Then there are roads and destinations truly breathtaking—that are sublime, almost like a spiritual experience. It’s like having a romantic relationship with someone, in this case, the cars.

Then there are cars that, although technically superior, mind-blowing on the track, and with amazing spec sheets that feel soulless, leave you cold.

In these instances, I feel that it takes time to develop that emotional connection with the car.

Nissan’s R35 GTR was originally one such that left me cold. In 2007, I was traveling with then Nissan Motor Philippines as one of their guests at the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show.

The star of that year’s show was the launch of the production version R35 GTR, which had undergone one of the longest and most publicized gestation periods.

And the world was waiting intently: will it truly finally have a left-hand drive version that would allow it to be released to the full global market, particularly the United States? Did it truly have the performance potential to take the fight to the European aristocrats? Did it have oodles of power to rival that of the big-block, hairy-chested American muscle cars? And would it still be a doodle to drive, reliable and cost-efficient to own on a daily basis as a typical Japanese car?

All these questions I pondered as we were led to a dark room somewhere in Tokyo for a preview of the production spec R35 GTR.

Casting off the Skyline name and being a model all on its own rather than a top-spec variant like its predecessors, the R35 GTR wowed the motoring media in its launch the next day.

Indeed, the specs were amazing: a dual-clutch transmission harnessed the 485 hp from the VR38DETT, essentially a closed-deck design of the much-awarded VQ/VH family of engines.

The engine was mounted front midship, had an intelligent ATTESA all-wheel drive system which continuously monitored grip levels and provided torque to whichever axle (front or rear) could best utilize it.

The transmission was a dual-clutch GR6 6-speed, revolutionary for a hard-core performance car, and one that has now been the norm for Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Audi supercars.

Polyphony, the producers of the most popular Sony PlayStations gaming franchise Gran Turismo, had come on board to develop a multifunction display system that monitored the R35 GTR’s engine and transmission vitals.

It was straight out of the future for a starry-eyed car enthusiast like me.

I had extended my trip to see the sights and sounds of Tokyo, and I found myself dropping by Nissan’s former global headquarters, a low-rise red brick building at Tokyo’s Ginza district. This was the week after the Tokyo Motorshow, and Nissan had displayed a few R35 GTR’s in the lobby. This sated my curiosity about the car even more.

Fast forward a year and a half later, I found myself driving a US-version grey-import 2009 model R35 GTR. They say you should never meet your childhood heroes, and it felt the same with this: the R35 felt skittish, its power felt a bit rough and patchy, and lacked the linearity you find in other vehicles. The GTR felt really heavy.

I was quite disappointed, and after our photoshoot, I closed the door, locked the GTR, and handed the keys to its owner and walked away, never looking back.

As years came and went, I got to drive even more R35 GTRs, many of them tuned and modified. But more power simply made the car feel more skittish.

THREE 370Z Nismo units that were given a track run by Philippine motoring journalists at Silverstone, UK, last year.

Yes, it was technically mind-blowing: fear generally ran through my head each time I floored the throttle of these tuned GTRs, a few being in the 800 hp level. But it still left me cold.

Finally, in 2015, with Nissan under the stewardship of the new Nissan Pilipinas Inc. brand, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nissan Motors Limited, rumors started surfacing that Nissan would finally import an official Philippine-spec R35 GTR complete with warranty and full factory backing.

The R35 GTR had developed some problems on grey-import cars I’d seen firsthand: failed ABS pumps, the Polyphony-developed multifunction display would conk out, and the instrument cluster would fail as well. These were simple problems, but expensive fixes.

If you owned a GTR up until the 2011 model, the transmission had a propensity to grenade itself when driven hard, the replacement of which would cost you P1 million plus core exchange. But with a full factory warranty, interest was renewed on this aging Japanese sportscar.

Later that year, at the Nismo Festival and the Nissan 360 Event, I got to drive the latest R35 GTR at Sodegaura Forest Raceway. And for the first time in my eight-year relationship with GTRs, we gelled.

Nissan had worked hard to improve the GTR’s long-distance grand-touring abilities to let it appeal to a wider market.

We were confined to the track, and while everyone did two sessions around the short oval section, I did six!

Today, it’s 2016, and I finally got to drive the latest R35 GTR on local soil. The latest GTR finally has 570 hp, a new interior that’s classier than before, a front bumper reminiscent of the Nissan Vision 2020 Concept Car displayed at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show, and most of the aerodynamic improvements that were originally in the Nismo version.

Consider this a teaser of my full review on the R35 GTR in this paper soon.

Finally, after nine years, Nissan has finally made good making the R35 GTR a truly global car, at least for the Philippines.

And finally, after nine years, the R35 GTR, despite approaching almost 150 years old in human years (a typical car’s life-cycle is five to six years, whereas a human’s life is about 72 to 75 years), is finally a truly desirable car.

Met in Japan nine years ago, reconnected last year, and finally hooked up this year. What a romance! Serendipitous? You bet! It was long-winded, but after allowing the relationship to distill for nine years, it was truly sweet. With a strong demand for high-end high-performance cars, thanks to a local economy that is growing stronger, the R35 GTR will be a success for Nissan.

The R35 GTR will be officially unveiled to the public at the Philippine International Motorshow this week, so check it out.