Nissan was taking a massive risk.
The Skyline GT-R had earned its place in performance car legend with its giant-killing tech after the arrival of the 1989 R32 which, for many Australians, was their first taste of the devastating capability of the almighty GT-R – so much so that our media coined the term ‘Godzilla’ – a moniker that still sticks decades later.
But the fifth-generation R35 GT-R was different.
The 2001 Tokyo motor show concept revealed it was to be purpose-built coupe – not a two-door based on a four-door sedan, but a sports car built from the ground up, even if skeptics thought it would have more in common with the 350Z of the time, whose lineage goes back to the Datsun brand’s successful attempt to crack the US sports car market with the S30-series 240Z (called the Fairlady Z in Japan) in 1969.
It would be unlike the legendary Skyline GT-R which had its roots in the original PCG10 2000 GT-R of 1969; ahead of its 2007 unveiling, fans knew it would have a four-wheel drive system amid a web of electric and mechanical wizardry comprising not one but two driveshafts and a rear transaxle, making it a quite portly 1800kg – 200kg more than the heaviest V-Spec R34 GT-R.
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As well as being heavier, the R35’s dimensions of 4655/1985/1370mm meant it was wider, longer, taller and sat on a longer wheelbase (2780mm) than any GT-R before it.
There wasn’t going to be a turbocharged straight-six either, but a new twin-turbo V6 under the bonnet. Nor would there be a manual gearbox, and it wasn’t even going to be called a Skyline.
Had Nissan simply gone too far? Did Nissan have the right – nay, the stupidity – to put those famous three letters, which to that point had been feared by both street and track rivals, on something completely different?
Yes, the R35 was going to be something else altogether. And it truly was something else.
The production version’s design was true to the 2001 concept car’s “function over form look”, although it was finessed and honed into a much more sophisticated shape that would barely change over a staggering 18-year production run.
Nissan described the R35’s design as practical: “Every styling aspect, from the overall design to the smallest details, is created to maximise the vehicle’s driving experience – as well as suggest GT-R’s ‘supercar’ level of performance”.
Its ‘super wide beam headlights’, muscular surfacing and angry front-end commanded serious road presence, and this was backed up it steel, aluminium and carbon-fibre construction.
The muscular haunches – with ‘aero blades’ on the guards – were unapologetically aggressive, making the beautiful and seductive lines of a Porsche 911 look restrained, humble and even soft by comparison.
This car was the Voltron of supercars, like something bursting out of the pages of Japanese manga comic books. Its flat, almost cam-back rear-end paid homage to the stove-top quad tail-lights of its predecessors, with a carbon-fibre rear diffuser capping off a slippery 0.27Cd drag coefficient.
If a 911 was a sculpted work of art, the GT-R was a chiselled athlete with muscles bursting at the seams. It looked like nothing else.
The GT-R was not a poseur’s car: it was a blur, a memory – a car so focused on shifting itself off the face of the planet that it didn’t care for bling and instead opted for gigabytes of tech and kiloWatts to pump through its extravagant powertrain.
Nissan’s VR36DETT – a 3.8-litre 60-degree petrol V6 with two turbos – had a lot to live up to. The truly iconic RB26DETT inline six that powered the R32 through R34 Skyline GT-Rs was as legendary among performance tuners as the GT-R itself.
Launched with 357kW of power and 588Nm of torque over 3200-5200rpm, the R35’s engine was a masterpiece: hand-made by designated ‘Takumi’ – master crafts folk – at Nissan’s Yokohama engine plant.
Its outputs (and price) would later peak at 441kW/652Nm with NISMO versions, before a run of 19 limited-edition GT-R 50 cars bumped that up further to 530kW. The final ‘standard’ R35 GT-Rs sold in Australia in 2022 made 419kW/652Nm.
The engine itself comprised a closed-deck aluminium block with plasma-coated cylinder bores to reduce friction and increase strength, plus a race-ready forged crankshaft, conrods and pistons. It was fed by a pair of parallel (as opposed to sequential) IHI RHF55 turbochargers (one for each bank) and quad-cam aluminium cylinder-heads with iridium-tipped spark plugs and direct fuel-injection.
While the 997 Series II 911 Turbo launched in late 2009 also used a twin-turbo 3.8-litre six-cylinder, it was of course a flat boxer six mounted in the rear of the car – and it delivered higher 368kW/650Nm outputs than the GT-R.
Yet the front-engined R35 pipped the (faster) PDK 911’s rapid 3.6-second claimed 0-100km/h acceleration time by a single tenth of a second – the manual 911 Turbo was 0.2 seconds slower than the GT-R. It backed that up with an 11.5 second quarter-mile (standing 402m).
The best part? The R35 launched in Australia in 2009 at $155,900 before on-road costs, with the GT-R Premium commanding an extra $4000 for an upgraded sound system and leather trim.
The slower 911 Turbo PDK of the day was priced at a cool $368,000, and the even slower manual at $360,100.
The Porsche also had all-wheel drive, so on paper these two rivals had a similar mechanical makeup. The key difference was how the Nissan delivered its energy to its four 20-inch alloy wheels.
While the engine’s mission was to launch the GT-R into the stratosphere, every other part of the driveline was hell-bent on keeping the car on the ground to convert that fury into speed – both in a straight line and around corners.
That included the latest evolution of Nissan’s computer-controlled ATTESA ETS four-wheel drive system, which was developed for the R32 Skyline GT-R. The acronym stands for (breathe in) Advanced Total Traction Engineering System All-terrain and Electric Torque Split.
Put simply, the R35 had a rear transaxle and the ATTESA ETS system was able to split torque both side-to-side and front-to-rear via a second driveshaft, which, combined with electronic adaptive dampers with a choice of modes, put all of the RB38DETT’s power down.
Pulled up by six-piston Brembo front brakes, the combo endowed the R35 with immense controllability, mind-blowing agility, physics-defying cornering capability and point-to-point pace unlike anything before it – even in the wet.
When it launched the R35, Nissan said it aimed to deliver “the ultimate supercar that can be driven by anyone, anytime, anywhere.” It did.
The six-speed Borg Warner dual-clutch transmission easily kept up, even if it was a bit clunky at low speeds, and even if this author lacked the processing speed – mentally – required to keep up with the GT-R’s sheer ability.
It made long roads short and devoured its destination. It had a firm and focussed ride, but it took no prisoners when it came to bumps, holes, ruts and camber changes – it just did it. It was almost too fast to enjoy – easy to drive quickly, but its ability to generate serious straightline and cornering speed required the mental and physical agility to match the immense engineering effort that enabled it.
Over 18 years, the GT-R contended with three different generations of its target rival, the 911 Turbo, and it didn’t bat an eyelid.
The initial gauntlet was thrown down when Nissan confirmed a lap time of seven minutes and 38 seconds around the legendary Nurburgring Nordschleife in September 2007, marking the start of a ‘Ring battle’ between the two brands.
The R35’s time was cut to 7:27.56 on April 15, 2009 – just as the Nissan landed in Australia. That compared to the 997 Series II 911 Turbo’s time of 7:39.00, set the same year.
Nissan didn’t stop there, though. Power increased annually, with a minor 2011 facelift barely changing the look, while a significant upgrade to the six-speed gearbox in 2017 kept the GT-R well-honed, delicately balanced and sharp enough to maintain its edge in the supercar game.
Its official 0-100km/h time was skimmed down to an electric car-like 2.7 seconds by the time fast-tracked side-impact crash test regs ended its run prematurely in Australia in 2022, while the final Nurburgring time for a factory R35 was 7:08.679 seconds, achieved by a NISMO version in 2013, although it controversially had minor modifications.
The R35 won Bathurst, too – the 12 Hour in 2015 against a field of Ferraris, McLarens and Lamborghinis – in far less controversial circumstances than the final R32 victory at the 1992 Bathurst 1000, where winner Jim Richards unloaded Australian motorsport’s most iconic swear words to the angry mob below the podium as co-driver Mark Skaife looked on in disbelief.
Multiple Japanese racing titles also made it seem like everywhere the GT-R went, legends were unfolded, triumphs came from tragedy and the absolute determination of a group of engineers to topple the world’s best came to the fore.
Nissan says the final R35, the last of 48,000 examples made globally including 997 sold in Australia, isn’t the end of the GT-R story – and for tuners, enthusiasts and fanatics, in a way, that’s not really up to Nissan.
The car will continue to represent the pinnacle of Japanese automotive engineering on roads, tracks and in garages, and will forever remain part of the performance car psyche.
But the R35 may be the last-hurrah for pure petrol-powered GT-Rs, the final example of the breed sending a guttural, deep timbre – as distinct from a 911’s flat-six cackle – that struck fear into pretenders, players and Porsche owners for decades.
Something else may be coming in the GT-R story, but the R35 was – is – something else.
MORE: Sayonara Godzilla: Final R35 Nissan GT-R rolls off the line