Vellum Venom Vignette: Restyled 2012 Nissan GT-R

Sajeev Mehta
by Sajeev Mehta
Christopher writes: Sajeev,Great analysis of the GT-R. Slow day at work, so I decided to cut a few inches out of the middle as you suggested (maybe more than just 2″…). Please excuse the crappy “MS Paint” editing and my poor editing skills… but I still think the profile looks so much better. Like a real super car. And it eliminates the fake fender vent!

Sajeev concludes:

One of the B&B’s counterpoint to my analysis was that the GT-R is massive and not especially pretty by design, compared to other vehicles in this class. Which is 100% true. But does that mean the GT-R should be massive like a CUV? Absolutely not! Thanks for proving my point, but you did take a little too much out of the middle. But still…

Your quickie redesign takes the GT-R back to the 4th and 5th generations of the Skyline GT-R: long, low and still pretty dumpy looking. That’s the way I like my GT-R. Welcome to The World of Proper. And, to wrap things up, here’s the original photo with your modified photo.

Sajeev Mehta
Sajeev Mehta

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  • Racingmaniac Racingmaniac on Jul 17, 2012

    I think the current GTR's nose just don't have that blunt-ness that the older ones are known for. They weren't supposed to be GT/Sportscar in the sense of a Z or something, but they are more along the line of more ordinary cars with muscle pills....R35 is kinda somewhere in between....

  • VQ37VHR VQ37VHR on Jul 19, 2012

    With all respect, this is plain wrong and not an improvement aestecially. The Skylines of yore were never meant to appear sleek. They were always rather bulky, but handsome/cool looking vehicles. I think the R35 better represents this than your rendering.

  • Kjhkjlhkjhkljh kljhjkhjklhkjh A prelude is a bad idea. There is already Acura with all the weird sport trims. This will not make back it's R&D money.
  • Analoggrotto I don't see a red car here, how blazing stupid are you people?
  • Redapple2 Love the wheels
  • Redapple2 Good luck to them. They used to make great cars. 510. 240Z, Sentra SE-R. Maxima. Frontier.
  • Joe65688619 Under Ghosn they went through the same short-term bottom-line thinking that GM did in the 80s/90s, and they have not recovered say, to their heyday in the 50s and 60s in terms of market share and innovation. Poor design decisions (a CVT in their front-wheel drive "4-Door Sports Car", model overlap in a poorly performing segment (they never needed the Altima AND the Maxima...what they needed was one vehicle with different drivetrain, including hybrid, to compete with the Accord/Camry, and decontenting their vehicles: My 2012 QX56 (I know, not a Nissan, but the same holds for the Armada) had power rear windows in the cargo area that could vent, a glass hatch on the back door that could be opened separate from the whole liftgate (in such a tall vehicle, kinda essential if you have it in a garage and want to load the trunk without having to open the garage door to make room for the lift gate), a nice driver's side folding armrest, and a few other quality-of-life details absent from my 2018 QX80. In a competitive market this attention to detai is can be the differentiator that sell cars. Now they are caught in the middle of the market, competing more with Hyundai and Kia and selling discounted vehicles near the same price points, but losing money on them. They invested also invested a lot in niche platforms. The Leaf was one of the first full EVs, but never really evolved. They misjudged the market - luxury EVs are selling, small budget models not so much. Variable compression engines offering little in terms of real-world power or tech, let a lot of complexity that is leading to higher failure rates. Aside from the Z and GT-R (low volume models), not much forced induction (whether your a fan or not, look at what Honda did with the CR-V and Acura RDX - same chassis, slap a turbo on it, make it nicer inside, and now you can sell it as a semi-premium brand with higher markup). That said, I do believe they retain the technical and engineering capability to do far better. About time management realized they need to make smarter investments and understand their markets better.
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