2015 Nissan GT-R NISMO roars into LA Auto Show

Without a doubt, one of my favorite performance cars has been the Nissan GT-R. Now the new NISMO version of the car, the Nissan GT-R NISMO, has debuted at the LA Auto Show and it’s nothing but pure awesomeness.

The unveiling was an attempt at drama, bringing Nissan’s front man for all things NISMO, Usain Bolt, to the stage to hype it up alongside moderator and Nissan Divisonal Vice President, Sales and Marketing Fred Diaz. It was pretty empty, with Bolt’s reaction being, well, a little scripted, but that doesn’t detract from the car itself, which elicited an audible gasp from the crowd. Especially once the full spectrum of performance metrics were announced.

The GT-R is a great-looking tribute to Japanese sports cars. It is sleek, powerful, and functional with its low-sloping roof and wide stance. The NISMO package adds a lot to that, not least of which are some seat-crimping engine outputs.

The 2015 Nissan GT-R NISMO has a V6 under the hood that, like it’s standard GT-R brethren, is hand-made by craftsmen at Nissan. The engine in the GT-R NISMO, however, has been boosted to output 600 horsepower and 481 lb-ft of torque. High-flow, large-diameter turbochargers straight out of the NISMO GT3 race team’s arsenal and improved ignition timing with a better fuel pump all translate to this huge boost in performance.

The chassis also saw changes, with improvements including custom-developed Bilstein DampTronic dampers on all four corners for progressive-scaled performance in grip enhancement. This allows for driver-selectable comfort and sport levels as well. New links on the front double-wishbone suspension enhance the castor trail to optimize wheel position during high-G cornering and large, high-rigidity bolts stabilize and stiffen the wheel-hub attachment to further improve that road hold.

This is finished with a hollow rear anti-roll bar to raise roll stiffness in the corners. All of that is capped off with exclusive NISMO tires from Dunlop on those beautiful 20-inch custom wheels.

The bodywork of the GT-R NISMO was stiffened with additional welds, more adhesive bonding, and other factory tuning learned from the NISMO experience on the track with the GT-R racers. While the GT-R already has impressive downforce characteristics on the track, this was enhanced with aerodynamic improvements to add another 100 kilograms of downforce at speed for even more track-hugging performance.

Finally, a new Dark Matte Grey paint scheme is offered exclusively for the Nissan GT-R NISMO to accentuate its muscularity and track readiness.

Interior upgrades include carbon fiber-backed RECARO seating for driver and front passenger, an Alcantara-clad steering wheel, carbon-like finishes throughout the cabin, and the NISMO signature red tachometer and red stitching details to go along with the red stripe at top dead center on the steering wheel.

This is a very impressive car to behold. It’s not all just looks either.

As I pointed out on TorqueNews, much to the chagrin of Managing Editor Patrick Rall (a huge Viper fan), the Nissan GT-R NISMO destroyed the Viper’s Nurburgring track speed, as seen in the video above.  The GT-R NISMO’s time was 7:08.679, besting the Viper SRT-10 ACR by four seconds and the Porsche 911 GT2 RS by nine seconds. The former GT-R time on the ‘ring was 7:19, showing how greatly these NISMO improvements helped the car. All of those times are with production-level cars, not specialty racers.

Very awesome. Check out the gallery below and let us know what you think of the new Nissan GT-R NISMO. It will be on sale here early next year after hitting sales floors in Japan next month. Pricing hasn’t been announced, but will likely be around the $150,000 range.