Back in June 2018, Nissan and Italdesign came up with a very special birthday gift to themselves. Jointly celebrating 50 years of the Italian design house and the GT-R name, the two brands collaborated on a one-off vehicle: the Nissan GT-R50.
After presenting the car at the 2018 Goodwood Festival of Speed, there was sufficient customer interest to justify a short production run. The brands agreed to get to work to make the car a reality and, two years on from the original unveiling, the production model is now getting ready to roll out.
Italdesign has revealed the final specification at its test track, Circuit Tazio Nuvolari Cervesina in Italy, where it has been evaluating the car’s dynamics. For the most part, the car has changed very little from that grand reveal in 2018, bar a few under-the-skin changes to make it production-ready.
Compared to the car it’s based on, just about everything you can set your eyes on is new, and specific to the GT-R 50. Most significant is the roof chop, with the 50’s roof some two inches lower than a regular GT-R. However, every panel is new, along with the new LED lights front and rear. There’s also an enormous, active rear wing.
More changes come in the most important place. Nissan has gone to town on the VR38DETT, adding GT3 race car turbochargers, new cams, changes to the ignition, intake and exhaust systems, and a whole new crankshaft. That bumps power up to 710hp — 110hp more than the next most powerful production GT-R — with 575lbft of torque.
Of course this also means Nissan has had to work on the gearbox, with new, reinforced parts — including the rear differential and propshaft — to handle the excess power. There’s revised suspension from Bilstein and new brakes from Brembo too. This all probably affects the car’s weight for the worse, but Nissan and Italdesign haven’t revealed any other specifications yet.
There’s fewer changes in the cabin though. It’s a regular GT-R affair inside, albeit with lashings of suede, leather, and — obviously — carbon fiber. Still, it’s not a bad place to be, and the car also retains that Polyphony Digital-designed HMI.
One big change in these images is the lack of gold. The original show car sported some excellent gold panels and inserts, and these are absent on the production model. However customers can personalize the car almost however they wish, including a number of classic GT-R liveries.
Surprisingly for a limited-run, high value vehicle of this type, there are a few cars still left available. Neither Nissan nor Italdesign have revealed a price or the required deposit to secure an example, but it’ll be in the region of $1m — or about five GT-R NISMOs.
If you take the plunge, the first deliveries will start later this year, running through into early 2021.
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