The ‘Ring Masters
On the account of fairness, this article has no credibility whatsoever. To be precise, this article is quite incredible. You see, a scribe is not just to scribble, but to scribble without any passion or prejudice. But since the subject of my article is the object of my dreams, I shall progress with my writing [...]
Sahil Khan
05.11.2008
Gadgets, Life & Style
On the account of fairness, this article has no credibility whatsoever. To be precise, this article is quite incredible. You see, a scribe is not just to scribble, but to scribble without any passion or prejudice. But since the subject of my article is the object of my dreams, I shall progress with my writing more as an ardent admirer than as a “stoned” writer. With that in mind, let us spiral into the ‘Ring, or for the auto-uninitiated: the Nurburgring race track at Germany.
Nissan, the Japanese auto-maker, tested the soon to be launched GT-R on Nurburgring Nordscheilfe on the 16th of April this year and clocked a lap time of 7 minutes 29 seconds, which is effing fast for a 3.8 litre engine car producing 480 hp. To put it in perspective, Porsche AG’s flagship production car the 911GT2(997) with a 3.6L engine producing 530 hp could manage the best of “only” 7:34 in September in a test conducted by Porsche. Also, it is just 1 second off the pace of the fastest production Porsche ever: the Carrera GT, which boasts a 5.4 litre V10 rated at 605 hp. Obviously this didn’t go down too well with blokes at Porsche, hence they publicly questioned the authenticity of Nissan’s lap time. They even bought a couple of GT-R’s from the US and themselves tested them, and the GT-R’s could only do a time of 7:54, which is slower than Chevrolet Corvette Z06 (which incidentally is a rival to both GT-R and 911 GT2) and even a Porsche 911 Carrera S (the lesser sister of the GT2)!
Here is a comparison between the technical specifications of the two cars:
Nissan GT-R Porsche 911 GT2 (997)
Curb Weight (lb) 3836 3175
Power (hp) 480 530
(The sources of the specifications are the official web-sites of the respective companies)
Now, as is apparent, not only the GT2 produces more power than the GT-R, it is also lighter. So, unless Sir Isaac Newton made a grave error formulating the laws of motion or the Nissan test driver is The Stig (of Top Gear fame), the GT2 should be faster around the ‘Ring. If Porsche folks are to be believed, Nissan used semi-slick or slick tyres as opposed to regular production tyres as claimed by Nissan. However, video evidence shows that Nissan in fact did not bluff this one. They did indeed use the regular tyres. The question thus remains: if not the tyres, what part of the GT-R was non-regular?
Indeed, I do believe that Nissan did lie about the lap time being that of the regular production car. I say that as a Porsche aficionado. I just can’t live with an inconsequential Japanese car being faster than the flagship car of the company that makes the finest sports cars out there.
Ashwin Mehendale
[ratings]
[image courtesy: http://tinyurl.com/5muuxc]
Good reads, love the info, keep up the good work.