For a country so renowned for its zany technological prowess, Japanese culture—especially its work culture—is strangely leashed to the past. No sane Gaijin would reasonably expect the country that gave the world bidets and bullet trains to have done so while being so reliant on fax machines and toxic drinking etiquette. Japanese culture is, to my limited knowledge as a curious but cautious onlooker, very meticulous and risk–averse, preferring the comfort of certainty over someone having to take responsibility for a failure. And so when something does come along that even the Japanese can't ignore, it tends to be so mind–blowing and revolutionary that other countries start having to copy and play catch up to it, resulting in a country and culture that has an ostensibly bizarre mix of the traditional and futuristic.
Japan is, of course, the country that gave the world the Nissan GT-R.
As might be expected, a car as revolutionary as the sixth–generation GT-R was born in a situation that was hardly safe and even less comfortable. In 1999, Nissan was in dire financial straits, and a Lebanese by the name of Carlos Ghosn was appointed as one of the excruciatingly few foreigners to take the helm at a Japanese automotive company, given the unenviable task of taking the company riddled with a 37.7 billion USD debt back to profitability. Unshackled and unconcerned by the esoteric rules and etiquette of Japanese society, Ghosn would completely upheave the wilting roots of Nissan from soil long since dried, restructuring the company by, among other things, changing the company's official language from Japanese to English, laying off a significant portion of the workforce, and promoting only those who perform well at their tasks instead of seniority. Us English speaking folk might see all that as a given, but to the very traditional Japanese, it must've felt as blasphemous as an alien invasion upon their homeland, suddenly being forced to defile their own customs and speak an alien language. The "Keiretsu Killer", as Ghosn was called, also wanted something very particular from Nissan as part of the Nissan Revival Project: "I told them, "no compromise". I don't care how much time it's gonna take—I want a very strong performance car."
Safe it is to say then, that Ghosn is the kind of man that usually gets what he wants.
While Chief Engineer Mizuno Kazutoshi is often colloquially called the "Godfather of the GT-R", I opine instead that the sixth–generation GT-R took after Ghosn more than anybody else. The "R35" GT-R seemed a completely supernatural lifeform descended to cause chaos and force others into rethinking their lifestyles, not unlike the movie character Godzilla. With the freedom of being the first GT-R to be its own independent model instead of being "just" a spiced up version of a family sedan, the R35 shook up the world of supercars so drastically in 2007 that I opine that performance cars since have just never been the same. It was the first car to offer launch control. The first with a dual–clutch semi–automatic gearbox, with no option for a stick–shift manual. Its door handles were flush against the door panels without as much a cubby hole to stick one's fingers into, instead having to push one end of the handle in to cantilever the other end out to pull, all in the name of minimising aerodynamic drag. It eschews a big NA engine in favour of a compact 3.8L twin–turbo V6 for balance and packaging benefits, mounted wholly behind the front axle for a front–midship layout. It spits in the pages of common performance bible by being extremely heavy, pushing its bespoke tyres more into the ground. It featured a LCD screen on the dashboard, and of course, it has a wealth of onboard computers that not only allow for a selection of multiple drive modes, but will also adjust the spring rates and torque distribution in real time according to what it senses on the road.
If you're a younger reader, all that might sound like a given in any premium automobile these days, but many of those things were simply unfathomable—let alone unheard of—in 2007. The Porsche Carrera GT—whose production ended in 2006—is often described to be the last analogue supercar, and I truly believe the R35 to be the cause of that by rewriting the supercar book cover–to–cover. But perhaps the damndest thing that the GT-R could do that seemingly no one else seems to have been able to replicate is that it was priced such that one needn't be in the 1% to be able to afford it; the base GT-R started at 7.78 million Yen in 2007 (70,000 USD in 2007, ~108,248 USD in 2025), and yet, it could more than hang with the flagship models of exotic brands like Porsche and Ferrari even in the best of conditions; come rain or snow, those prestigious cars wouldn't even dare leave their humidity controlled garages. And that I suspect is the only reason the R35 doesn't get as much renown and acclaim as something like the McLaren F1; it's so easy and realistically attainable, demanding neither ridiculous wealth nor skill from its driver to experience supercar thrills. It's become such a common sight, such a household name, that I feel it undermines just how big of a paradigm shift it has effected in its wake.
栃木県警R35GT-Rパトカ by XSquareStickIt
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Amuse Carbon R35 by XSquareStickIt
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Amuse Phantom R35 by XSquareStickIt
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But once the Japanese find a new comfort, they tend to sit on it for a long, long time, preserving it painstakingly as though a significant cultural artefact. The R35 GT-R was in production for some 18 years since, which is longer than all of the prior 5 generations of GT-Rs... combined. In that exceptionally long production run, the R35 has received minor updates and facelifts, but stayed largely the same, resulting in it slowly and surely beginning to feel outdated as the rest of the world caught up to and built upon the ideas the R35 unleashed. Supercars nowadays are almost always sporting a turbo engine kept in check by a bevy of electronic nannies, offering stupendous torque from a wide rev range while sounding dull and soulless, just like the R35. They're all heavy beasts that default to understeer at the limit, just like the GT-R. They almost always have screens in the cockpit, and many feature flush door handles to minimise drag, just like the GT-R. More than those however, modern carmakers began to implement even more futuristic tech into their car, like a screen to replace an entire dashboard, hybridisation and electrification, 7 or more forward gears, active aero, and even autonomous driving. The R35 on the other hand, stayed exclusively petrol–propelled with a 6–speed gearbox, using barbaric sticks to count its revs and speed. Its wing is as permanent and unmoving as though a historic monument, and it still employs the use of physical dials and knobs for chores like air con and radio.
But being outdated isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, I've yet to hear tales of an over–the–air software update bricking an R35 and leaving its driver stranded in the middle of nowhere, nor does it have nonsensical electronic door locks that have proved deadly in accidents. Amenities already in the car are all available to the driver without a subscription, and it hasn't ever run over anyone without its driver's say–so. Needles do the job just fine without risking a screen burning in, and not having to take my eyes off the road to adjust the air con or audio via physical controls with tactile feedback are all godzillasends when driving. There's no range anxiety in the GT-R, and it drinks petrol from just about any station. For as alien as the R35 first appeared to be, time has proved that it can be quite Japanese as well; the R35 is a blend of the future and the past, offering the best of both worlds in a package that is futuristic where the future seems promising, while staying rooted in the past where it has been proven.
Of course, in a driving video game, very little of that real life nonsense matters. It's not often that I write about the real world stories and feats of a car, but the GT-Rs across its six generations are all cars that I hold massive respect for, and they more often than not have stories to tell, even if I don't much fancy how many of them drive in the games. Of the four road–going R35 GT-Rs in GT7, the 2017 Nismo variant is clearly the fastest, being shod with Sports Medium tyres by default and weighing more or less the same as the base R35s while packing a good chunk more power, although it still exhibits many of the same behaviours as the "base" GT-Rs, just at a higher speed. The road–going R35s all drive very similarly, being almost alarmingly composed and isolating its driver across all types of roads, feeling every bit as uncanny and futuristic as it did in 2007. At the same time, they do feel a little outdated even in the driving dynamics area: push them hard enough in a way they don't quite like, and the cars can very suddenly lose grip and start washing wide, giving me the impression that the onboard wizards aren't quite as sharp and omnipotent as some of the most hand–holdy supercars of today. That said, it resolves itself in a split second of waiting, and I as a driver feel nothing whatsoever. The part that spikes my heart rate the most is that these GT-Rs are incredibly tail happy on hard trail braking even on the strongest ABS setting of Default, and this tail happiness somehow feels so unrefined, yet helpful at the same time that I can't even tell if it's intentional or not. But once the time comes to apply the throttle, the R35s hook up with scary efficiency, and the even power curves paired with damn near instantaneous shifts and monotonous V6 whirr make the cars feel as uncanny, soulless, and efficient as a spaceship. For as uncanny as these cars corner, they're almost even more uncanny with how they make me feel bewildered each time I roll on the gas pedal with "just" 570PS (419kW) (T-spec).
However, there's a glaring difference in driving dynamics between the 2024 T-spec and the 2017 variants: the T-spec somehow feels undeniably more nose heavy and understeery than its older siblings in spite of having the exact same mass distribution of 54:46, and it's a difference I can only feel, not explain. For that reason, I much prefer the older R35s for driving, and I don't much fancy how the 2024 car looks, either. While the T-spec is offered in the sacred colour of Midnight Purple, I really don't see the appeal of a paintjob that looks like someone vomited into an oil spill. To tune, the 2024 T-spec and 2017 Nismo get the utterly broken Chiron engine swap, whereas the 2017 has to make do with the much more unwieldy turbo LS7 V8 from the BRZ Drift Car, and the safety car gets sweet f–all. Honestly, unless you need the strobe lights of the safety car for whatever reason, the 2017 Nismo is clearly the pick of the litter, invalidating every other road–going R35 in the game.
With Ghosn now effectively exiled from Japan and Nissan slumping into yet another financial crisis, maybe now is the time for someone else to play the villain and create another monster of discomfort that can disrupt the status quo and revive the brand. But for now, Godzilla rests. It may be gone, but its presence in the industry will be felt for what I suspect will be decades still to come.
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