If you, like most of us, figured that Nissan rolled out the GT-R50 by Italdesign concept car at the Goodwood Festival of Speed as merely a way for us to pay attention to their flagship sports car and to speculate on how the next-generation car might look like and perform; well, think again. The Japanese automaker has just confirmed that it has been green lit for production, coach-built body and all.
"The reaction from Nissan fans around the world – and potential customers of the GT-R50 – has greatly exceeded our expectations,” said Bob Laishley, global sports car program director at Nissan. "These 50 cars, which celebrate 50 years of the GT-R as well as 50 years of Italdesign, will be rolling tributes to Nissan’s engineering leadership and rich sports car heritage for a long time to come.”
The watchword here is ‘exclusivity’, something not really associated with the Nissan R35 GT-R or any of its predecessors. As far as we know, no mechanical changes are on the cards here, but it will be a fully realised road going version of the concept, built by hand in Turin by Italdesign and capped at 50 units. The price for this suave Godzilla? 990,000 Euros.
Nissan and Italdesign says it will be identical to concept version previewed at Goodwood. It’s built on the GT-R Nismo but it will be powered by a 536kW version of the VR38DETT 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged V6 that’s mated to a 6-speed dual-clutch transmission and all-wheel drive. Though, because much of the car’s body will be fashioned from aluminium and even carbon fibre, it should weigh a good amount less than the GT-R Nismo. Add to that it’s substantially more powerful engine, and the R50 should be much more potent beast.
In all probability, though, Nissan may well indeed take cues from the GT-R50 to incorporate into their next-generation ‘R36’ GT-R, but it still might not match the sheer awe factor of this concept; a concept car come to life. Still, we might not need to wait all that much longer for a taste of what Nissan and Mizuno-san’s team has in store as many are expecting a teaser as early as 2019 for a car to replace the ageing decade-old R35.
While the GT-R50 concept made its debut with these rose gold-like accents, Nissan will be let customers have a much broader palette to choose from along with a range of interior colour and material options. Deliveries are expected to begin in 2019 and continue through 2020, but it still isn’t clear what the selection process is for this limited run of 50 units.
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