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Automobile Magazine: 2012 Nissan GT-R

3K views 14 replies 12 participants last post by  NNL21 
#1 ·
Discussion starter · #8 ·
My analysis:

Phil Floraday is a die-hard Porsche guy, they're programmed to dislike anything not Porsche (ok, bit extreme but most often true). That said I understand (to a degree) his point of "there's still less driver involvement and tactile feedback in a GT-R than any of its competitors." Don't agree on the bucket of bolts Cheby Vette he examples with, but certain Porsches I can agree with this on. In fact this Spring I was considering (discussed it on here) trading in the GTR and getting an '09 997.2 S Cab w/PDK. My complaints are similar to Phil but only as a street car I find the GTR lacks some excitement, feedback and overall visceral feel. Where I part with Phil is when you can safely open it up the car transforms into a much more exciting machine. These times are few and far between as a street car unfortunately.

My quest for a 911C2S met failure simply as there is so little used inventory out there because their sales were down so much for the last few years (porsche even started a 2-year lease program to try to get used cars into the dealerships to help booster poor used car sales revenue and sell more new 911's). The other things that turned me off are the front steering wheel buttons instead of paddles for the PDK or you can spend $1200 for a new steering wheel with paddles on the wheel and not the column (annoying placement IMO). Then they put a kickdown button at the bottom of the gas pedal reminiscent of torque-converter automatics before fly-by-wire. It's annoying, you're in manual mode and you may want to dive into that throttle in say 3rd gear and not downshift, but if you touch that button it overrides you and drops gears. Then there is the undisputable fact that the car is much slower than the GTR, public road concerns notwithstanding, sometimes you just want to have that power to punch it on the highway. Having owned the GTR this long I don't think I could give it up for such a large drop in sheer power.

Perfect for me is the 458 Italia. I have had the pleasure of being able to drive one a bit this summer as my retired father with lots of savings bought himself one, and is nice enough to let me borrow it. It's the near perfect sports car in my opinion: the steering feedback, awesome soundtrack, sexy looks, engine, engine, engine, and best dual clutch box in existence. All that said it costs almost 4x what I paid for my GTR in '08, certainly a number I don't find myself anywhere near comfortable putting up that kind of coin for a toy. So to summarize my rant what im saying is it's no where as easy to find that true competitor to the GTR at the similar price as Automobile Mag makes it out to be. I want everything the Italia gives you but for under 100k, but that's not going to happen. So you have to make compromises, and so far I can't find a car with more of my desired check-boxes marked than the GTR for the price.
 
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