Originally Posted by helldorado

Spending two hours with Parth and his new GTR is a bit like spending two hours with your friend's girlfriend, if she happened to be a hot stripper. When you see one with two guys, you know one is the big daddy, and one is just tagging along for the ride. But with the GTR, you don't care that you're the tag-a-long, its a hell of a ride. And hey, strippers normally have hot stripper friends, maybe you'll catch a crumb.

The car elicits stares, awe and confusion. If people recognize it, they're excited. Even if they don't recognize it, the car has enough presence to make them ask what it is. Even in the first day, Parth was asked if it was a new Ferrari and offered $100 to a 1/2 mile ride by two different people. Everywhere you went, people were looking. That's a hell of a feat for a black car in the dark.

So lets get down to business. You had two big guys in the car. Combined, Parth and I are over 600 lbs of passenger. We were a little close at the elbows with him reaching for the shifter, but both of us were comfortable. Interior room is right between the Z and the G coupe. I fit comfortably, though snugly in the seat and the interior door panel was a little closer to my elbow than the G's door, but it had ample head room, leg room and was great for the two of us. This is a place you can get comfortable in. The back seats are about as usable as the G's, but the trunk is bigger, notably deeper.

The seats are incredible. Deeply padded, but supportive and without being firm to the point of hard. You settle in and they caress you. I felt extremely well supported in them. The quality of interior such as the leather, plastic and interior components is on par with the newer Infinitis. Its inline for the Infiniti range, but better than what you see on most Nissans. You won't be disappointed if you're familiar with Nissan's interior offerings already. The key is that everything is where it needs to be and there's no fluff. There was no question of ergonomics in this car.

Admittedly, there are a couple tricks you need to learn, but once you do, you'll wonder why more cars aren't like this. First, the gear shift lever. Most cars have a front or side trigger for engaging out of park. The trigger is the entire top face of the stubby shifter. It encourages you to grab and manhandle. Second, the interior door latch isn't a standard side pull. It pulls up from the top of the door pull where the window controls are. Very easy once you know to reach for it. Finally, the exterior door handles. Push in the edge with your thumb and it pops out, in a pull fashion. Very trick and adds to the already clean lines of the car.

The info center. Awesome. Polyphony Digital created the GUI, and its very sweet. Touch screen interface, simple dial controls. There's a couple preset displays and several screens with custom options you can lay out. Anything you'd need displayed, this car can pop up for you. HKS's CAMP II has nothing on this system. I wouldn't mind a slightly larger screen and higher resolution, but you won't complain looking at it. It responds fast and the touch screen is accurate, that's what matters. You're not inundated with gauges, just a single clean display that is easily navigated while driving.

And speaking of driving.... wow.

How a car with 480 hp is so tame on regular roads incredible. Coming from all NA vehicles, you get use to the car being touchy and twitchy with the gas. Not the GTR. Very reserved until you get on the gas. We had no trouble in traffic, at lights, anything. No issue in starting lightly and easily, when you're out of boost.

Now get on the throttle and that's a different story.

If you've been in a TT Z or G, you know there can be a lot of drama on hard launch. Tire spin, back end sliding out, smoky burnouts. Its all good fun but its not much fun to be in 2nd or 3rd and still have trouble going WOT. An easy fix is to run DOT-R's, which most do, but then you've just turned your car into a fair weather only vehicle.

The GTR can be driven WOT just about any day of the year. I truly believe that. This is a true sports car you can daily. When we went WOT, from a roll, dead stop, anything... No drama. The car hooked up and went. 120 mph? Dead stable and we were there before you even realized it. The car keeps pulling and it pulls ****ING HARD. Watch the center diff torque bias on the main screen and you see the bar go from AWD to RWD as it biased from 50:50 back to 100% RWD. Except on hard launches, you rarely see more than 20% being applied to the fronts.

The transmission is dead fast too. Super fast shifts. Not harsh either. In full automatic, its a little more conservative, fuel saving, shift early unless you go WOT. In manumatic, use the shifter or the paddles. Both work well and provide awesome feedback. At low speeds, you do hear and feel a slightly clunk, but its very minor. You hear it more than feel it. You do feel the diffs slightly at low speeds. Still very drivable and only people coming from softer tuned factory vehicles would gripe.

The brakes didn't squeal much. I expected more. The 15" rotors are awesome. One of the few brakes to dwarf my 14" AP Racing setup. They're quieter, but I can tell they'll dust heavy. Great stopping power, you feel them clamp down. Only a sub 20 mph speeds are they grabby. Very similar to the first couple years of the G and Z that had single piston calipers. But they modulate well and feel great.

Suspension has been cited as being harsh by critics. We didn't feel it. As a passenger you notice the suspension more. We had the car in R mode most of the time. It felt no stiffer or harsher than what we were used to with our aftermarket setups. They key was how well the car remained its poise. Compared to my KW V3's that are set about 50% stiffness and rebound, the GTR is actually more comfortable at low speeds and seems to have better response at higher speeds and harder corners. Comfort mode made it feel like a large sedan. Great for extended drives or in the uneven roads of the city where you don't need performance settings on. The only thing I felt the car was missing was height adjustment. Something where R mode would lower the car 1/2" and comfort would raise it. Would also help with inclines and driveways.

Complaints? It makes wierd noises, you hear the transmission, it whirs and whooshes. There's no large displacement V8 here. It sound futuristic. Nissan gives you a 3 page document explaining the noises and how nothing is wrong with the car because it makes them. The overall dash design is great and good quality, but the center console where the HVAC controls are looks plain compared to the rest. I would not be surprised to see that revised in the first 2 years. Speedo wouldn't hurt to be clocked 180 degrees either. Wierd to have 60 mph pointing almost straight down.

Overall, there is so much to this car, I can't believe MSRP is $75k. I was so enchanted by it, that I am putting serious consideration into demodding my car, trading it in for a cheap 2 year lease then getting in line for a 2010/11 model in another 18 months.

And yes, I would daily it. This car can and deserves to be driven every day.


For those who haven't seen the pics, here they are. I will get the touchscreen photos up this evening. 1600x1000 versions are available in the gallery.
http://www.projectforwardmotion.com/...ots/parth_gtr/