An R35 Faster Than The Nismo In The Works
By Paulo Acoba
There very well may be a faster Nissan GT-R R35 on the way.
Believe it or not the Nissan GT-R R35 has been in production for close to eight years now and you’d think Nissan has reached the pinnacle of that chassis and engine combination. But according to an impromptu interview by Top Gear earlier last week (Sept. 17, 2015) with Phillipe Klein Nissan’s head of product planning, Nissan isn’t done with the R35 and its powerful twin turbocharged V6 quite yet. According to Klein, ” You know, it’s a never ending quest. There is still development potential there, always.” Currently the range topping 2016 Nissan GT-R Nismo makes a generous 600 HP and 481 lb-ft of torque from its VR38DETT, an engine that can trace its history all the way back to the R390 GT1 Le Mans racing engines in the mid 90’s. Apparently there’s still plenty of development in that engine left in the tank!
In the hands of one of Nissan’s top test drivers, the burly Nissan GT-R Nismo put many supercars to shame by blazing through the Nurburgring in seven minutes and eight seconds. If Nissan decides to throw us an even more hardcore version of the Nismo GT-R expect weight to be thoroughly stripped, more so than the 143 pounds that the “Track Pack” already does. And if this is to be a last hurrah for the R35, you’d better believe that NISMO will spend thousands of hours in real and virtual wind tunnels to create an aero package that very well may mimic its brothers in Super GT.
As for the R36, design will draw inspiration from the 2020 Vision Gran Turismo and rumors of a hybrid powertrain from Nissan’s Le Mans Prototype (LMP1) finding its way under the hood are more likely than not. Expect to hear inklings of the R36 around late next year with a production model dropping in 2018.
