What's all this then?
"Gold! Always believe in your soul. You've got the power to know, you're indestructible..."
Why are you singing Spandau Ballet?
Sorry, must have gold on my mind. Can't imagine why.
Anything to do with this unique Nissan GT-R?
Could be. It is after all the 50th, and therefore golden, anniversary of both the Nissan GT-R and the famed Italdesign styling studio (established by the great Giorgetto Giugiaro), and so someone's seen fit to put the two together to create this, Nissan GT-R50 by Italdesign.
What's so special about it?
Well, for a start, it looks different. The result of a collaboration between Nissan's European and American design studios and Italdesign, and it starts at the front where there are new LED lights that reach way down into the bumpers, a new bonnet with a bigger bulge (oooh, matron etc) and a very flash gold inlay in the grille.
Look from the side and the 'Samurai Blade' air vents have the same gold inlay, while the roof has been dropped by 54mm, and given a 'double-bubble' effect with a lower centre section. Those wheels are custom-built 21-inch rims, by the way.
Around the back, there's even more gold trim, plus new lights that take the GT-R's traditional round rear lenses and hollow them out for a rather cool structural effect. There's also a barn-door rear wing, mounted on adjustable struts.
Any mechanical changes?
Oh yes. The famous 3.8-liter V6 VR38DETT engine, still built by hand, gets GT3-race-car-spec turbos, new crankshaft and camshafts, new pistons with high-speed oil jets and a new exhaust system. The result of all that is a whopping 720hp with 780Nm of torque. Reining all that in is revised suspension, with Bilstein adaptive dampers, and new Brembo brakes, with six-pot front callipers (painted red, natch).
And the cabin?
Lashings and lashings of gold, two different carbon-fibre finishes, Alcantara suede and fine, Corinthian black leather.
"How often do you get to ask, 'What if we created a GT-R without limits,' and then actually get to build it?" said Alfonso Albaisa, Nissan's senior vice president for global design. "This is a rare window in time when two big moments intersect: 50 years of Italdesign shaping the automotive world and 50 years of Nissan generating excitement through our iconic GT-R. So, to celebrate this convergence, Nissan and Italdesign created this custom GT-R to mark 50 years of engineering leadership. Although this is not the next-generation GT-R, it is an exciting celebration of two anniversaries in a provocative and creative way - wrapping one of Nissan's best engineering platforms and Japanese design with Italian coachbuilding."
Are they going to actually build and sell these?
Not officially yet, but you never know your luck...
Neil Briscoe - 29 Jun 2018