A Lap of the Nurburgring in the 2009 Nissan GT-R
You may not like the GT-R, but this is a pretty cool article about how testing is done at NBR, with lots of pictures and a video.
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Features/articleId=123066
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Features/articleId=123066
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We're here at the Nürburgring with Nissan on an exclusive invitation. Today it'll attempt to beat the 911 Turbo's lap time. It's morning in late September, and patches of roiling gray clouds that ebb and flow threaten to undermine the company's highly coordinated assault on the Green Hell.
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The car has a brutal, chunky presence that does not come through in photographs. It is certainly not a beautiful car, yet its surface development is complex enough to grab your gaze like a grappling hook. Nissan wouldn't have it any other way. "We didn't want a nice elegant shape. We wanted an original shape," says GT-R Design Director Shiro Nakamura.
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A three-year service program is included with the purchase of each GT-R. This program consists of wheel alignments and engine and transmission checkups every year. Only those dealerships willing to invest in this equipment and training required by the factory have a shot at having GT-Rs grace their showrooms. In Japan, 10 percent of Nissan's sales outlets will offer GT-Rs and we expect a similar ratio Stateside.
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It's over before I expect, and in the end we clocked in at 8 minutes, 13 seconds. Our lap was not intended to be a record attempt, yet nonetheless represents an enviable pace.
The record lap would be set by Nissan's top shoe, Suzuki-san, who ultimately turned in a lap in 7 minutes, 38 seconds on a partially wet circuit. Those ominous clouds looming in the sky earlier in the day left their mark on two areas of the track, Kesselchen and Wehrsiefen, and required Suzuki-san to rein his speed in a bit.
Beating a 911 Turbo around the Nordschleife is an accomplishment at any price, but pipping it by 2 seconds, on a partly damp circuit, at an estimated price point of $80,000 is something else entirely.
