I could tell you this is one of my favorite cars. Which it is. But it isn't just my favourite car. It's the favourite car. The favourite car of many automotive junkies. It's not nicknamed Godzilla just because its from Japan. It freakin destroys. Since it's inception it has beaten tons of it's rivals at fractions of the price. To say that this vehicle is an automotive turning point is an understatement.
I still remember when I was waiting for this car to be unveiled in 2007. I sat on the official GT-R site as the numbers counted down. When it reached 00/00/00 00:00:00. I sat there. I sat there for 3 freakin hours and the site didn't update. That's how committed I was to seeing this new flagship. The new era of Japanese super car dominance. In the end, 4 hours after midnight, the site roared to life and I witnessed the new R35 GT-R for the first time. This truly was and will be one of the greats.
Each year the car has been produced, there has been numerous tweaks and upgrades. But not without a price. Besides a performance standpoint, the GT-R is also notorious for something else. The price hike. When the car debuted it was priced at around 90k. Today the MSRP is over 120. That's a 33% price hike in 6 years over a single generation, which is absurd. But the weird thing is even at 120K the car is still a bargain because of the performance it offers. Often, you'd have to pay 2-3x+ to get the same amount of performance. Several cars that cost more than the GT-R can't out perform it.
With these tweaks and changes over the years, there are also a few special editions which came out. One of them is the SpecV which is the one you are looking at. If you notice that the color is a bit off black, your eyes aren't fooling you. The color is Ultimate Opal Black and has a small hue of purple in it.
Production car pic:
The SpecV came out in 2009, 2 years after the initial GT-R was released and had a number of add-ons/exclusives. One of them I already mentioned was the colour. Other changes that the car received was a massive amount of parts being replaced by carbon fiber. These parts including the spoiler, grill, brake ducts and interior panels. The front seats were changed to be carbon fiber Recaro's and even the rear seats were removed and replaced with carbon fiber panels.
Besides lightening the car through carbon fiber a bunch of performance enhancements were added. These included a light weight titanium exhaust, special retuned suspension and the notoriously expensive carbon ceramic brake options to bring this beast to a stop faster.
And last, but not least. Special editions wheels. You guessed it. My favourite wheel company. VOLKS BABY. 20" VOLK NISMO wheels.
Over all, this provided the car with a lot more improvement on the track and setting better times. I'm glad I was able to pick up this model to add to my collection. I felt that the normal GT-R looked a bit bland and with the SpecV in the Ultimate Opal Black, it definitely is a stunning machine.
Carbon ceramic wheels on the Vspec Package can be seen here. Really diggin the metallic brake calliper. The wheels are molded really nicely and AUTOart took the time to make the front wheels flat faced and the rear wheels a bit more concave for a staggered look. Very rare for a car model. Most of the time all 4 wheels are identical.
Full carbon VSpec spoiler:
One of my favourite parts on this model is the back end. The trunk when it opens looks great also. Several hinges and dampers to keep the trunk open and the detail on the inner trunk lid/flocking on the trunk surfaces really make this car seem like it's real. I also like the rear windshield defoggers on the window.
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