Car and Driver: Nissan Plays Silly Buggers With GT-R Hp
Larry Webster at Car and Driver (C&D) noticed a marked performance difference between some of the five Nissan GT-Rs the mags' reviewers had driven (in case you were wondering, Berkowitz' GT-R count is zero). Suspecting "a ringer," the eds decided to stick the uber-Nissan on a dyno. The Godzilla press car was making 420 horsepower at the wheels. Using an estimate of 20 percent loss, the buff book reckoned the GT-R produced 519 horsepower at the crank. This is, of course, based on that assumption (despite Nissan's claims) that the GT-R has unusually low crank-to-wheel power loss. The carmaker attributed the difference between published and actual hp to "early build" cars' varying computer software programming. Translation: Nissan sent out ringers so that C&D, Edmunds, and the other buff books could trumpet "GT-R DOES 0-60 IN 1.1 SECONDS!" As most of us won't be driving a GT-R, the car's PR importance vastly outstrips the importance of honesty, consistency and integrity. Obviously. And this renews questions ( raised at the time by TTAC and others) about the validity of the "production" GT-R's Nürburgring record-setting lap time.
Immensely bored law student. I've also got 3 dogs.
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The production cars are not as fast as a stock C6 Corvette with "only" 430 hp. Oh ya, a base C6 is $30K less.
SupaMan : The GT-R has AWD, which helps greatly with launching. From 0-60, the biggest factor for almost any car with 400+hp is traction, not power/weight ratio. Which is partially why 0-60 is kind of pointless in this day and age where even Camrys are doing it in under 6 seconds. The GT-R also has launch control, which I'm assuming helps cut down 0-60 times too I don't think it's outrageous for the GT-R to have a better 0-60 than the Z06
Jim Wangers is back and has a G8 he wants you to test... Very old C/D reference