The R35 Nissan GT-R, which shaped an entire generation, is dead

My dear ghouls and goblins, I’ve gathered you here today to share the news that the Nissan GT-R is dead. The car that changed everything we knew about high-performance cars, rewrote the rulebook for street-legal speed, and influenced a generation of high-performance cars from America to Germany is riding off into the sunset at the end of the 2024 model year. Seventeen years is a hell of a long time, and while some may argue that Nissan’s flagship drifted into irrelevance as every other automaker under the sun kept up with its speed, I’d say its influence is felt more strongly than ever.

First of all, you know that the end of a sports car’s production comes with some last-call special editions, and the Nissan GT-R is getting two of them. The $152,985 T-Spec Takumi Edition includes the iconic Midnight Purple paint job, Mori Green interior, a gold VIN plate, and a small red “R” on the engine. Then there’s the $132,985 Skyline Edition, which doesn’t have carbon-ceramic brakes or pumped-up fenders, but is painted Bayside Blue. Nissan is bringing a total of 200 examples to America, and will sell every single one of them.

Now let’s talk a little about how the Nissan GT-R changed cars forever. Some cars mow corners with the finesse of a scalpel. The GT-R has blunt force impacts. It understeered mid-corner unless you swallowed a brave pill and gave it some throttle, in which case the great Gran Turismo devices would redistribute the torque distribution and claw you toward the apex. It was an elephant in Nikes that was faster than the 911 Turbo. Love the formula or hate it, it got results and everyone noticed. Today you can get a Golf that offers exactly the same all-wheel drive wizardry, or a big BMW coupe, or even a Jaguar F-Type. Sure, other cars used all-wheel drive for more speed back in the day, but the Nissan GT-R made it mandatory for everyone. That’s how to keep up with the neighbors.

Likewise, the GT-R’s turbo torque was rather unusual in 2007. Sure, Porsche built the 911 Turbo, but the fast BMWs, V8 Mercedes-Benzes, Maseratis and Ferraris were all naturally aspirated. Today, Lexus is the only automaker selling reasonably affordable, high-performance naturally aspirated luxury cars. After all, who could resist turbo torque when you’re racing?

Oh, and then there’s the dual-clutch automatic transmission in what could fairly be called a supercar. Who did that in 2007? Nissan, sure, but who else? Every Italian automaker was still playing around with miserable single-clutch automatics, and America’s two ultra-fast sports cars relied on self-shifting transmissions. Hell, Porsche’s PDK hadn’t even come out when the GT-R was unveiled. The only other car to experiment with dual-clutch and brutal acceleration was the Bugatti Veyron, and that cost more than ten times as much as a GT-R. Now the Corvette is dual-clutch only, as are every Ferrari, McLaren, and new Lamborghini except the Urus.

Now, was the GT-R’s influence exclusively positive? No. Don’t get me wrong, it played a huge role in making today’s cars incredibly, brutally, and absurdly fast, but it also seemed like a real-life case of fighting a problem with so many tires, dampers, and electronics that it ground to the ground. There’s nothing subtle about a GT-R, nor is there any sign of deferred performance gratification, and the lack of those things is what we’ve come to expect from the current generation of high-performance machines. Think of the massive BMW M8, the 4,343-pound Mercedes-AMG GT, or the 4,024-pound Mustang Dark Horse. These machines aren’t fast because of their design, they’re fast despite that design.

So allow me to say a “thank you” and a little “fuck you” to the Nissan GT-R. Whether you love or hate its brutal formula, we can’t deny that we’ve all watched and every automaker has felt its influence. It was the harbinger of the era of turbocharged all-wheel-drive sports cars, of somewhat accessible, insane speed and absurd numbers, perhaps at the expense of ultimate commitment. As it makes one final launch-controlled takeoff into the sunset, let’s take a moment to appreciate its significance. It truly did change cars forever.

(Image credit: Nissan)

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