The R35 started development in 2000 and was launched in 2007. It has had a number of updates along the way, but you can only push an old platform so far. The R35 has already been discontinued in most markets because it can't comply with new regulations. It's sad to say goodbye to an icon, but the R35 has remained in production for far longer than anyone would reasonably have expected.
It probably doesn't help that the car is so closely associated with Carlos Ghosn.
It's a really interesting car. Right there with the Honda S2000 one of the most interesting cars in the last 25 years. Sadly, both Nissan and Honda have failed to create a saga.
2 sports car purchases ago, the S2000 was near the top of my list, but came in 2nd place because it was going to be my only car, and I figured a 2 seat hatchback was more practical than a 2 seat convertible.
I think I made the right choice though both the S2k and the car I bought increased in value over the following 15 years.
I'd still love to own an S2k, but the way values have continued to levitate actually pushed me into a Boxster instead. I still think I'll own one some day. The s2k is one of the most attractive sports cars in history, IMO. I think that was helped by the fact that they never replaced it -- a replacement model always 'ages' the previous one.
That’s mostly the AP1 with the 9,0000 rpm rev limit.
Wanna know how I _handle_ it? I check the oil before I drive it and top it up. Perhaps I could swap retainers and banjo bolts but I’m lazy and checking the oil is easy. I pop the hood when I pull into my garage to remind me to check the oil before racing off.
Oil burning was a common problem for early S2000s (specifically AP1 motors) and AFAIK (having been an owner for 10+ years and read nearly every s2ki/s2kca forum post over the last 20 years), the problem was never truly solved in a documented, reproducible way.
Replacing the valve stems, seals, changing oil brands/weights, etc. have all been a bit unscientific and for me, the only thing that’s “worked” was not overfilling (as anxious owners tend to do), checking early and often, and ensuring I read the dipstick correctly (the trick on this motor is to read both sides of the dipstick).
Unfortunately, Honda always held firm on the "1 litre per 1000 miles is considered normal” and the problem went away with the F22C/AP2 motor. I've learned to live with it for an otherwise extremely reliable ownership experience.
I just purchased an AP2 back in July, i've taken it to the track twice already. It may not be as fast as some of the other new mid/entry level tuner/performance vehicles that have come out in the last few years, but I bet have the biggest smile on my face than anyone out there.
Unfortunately, in the USA, the regulations essentially just force manufacturers to put the engine into a huge body just so they fall under different (less-strict) emissions regulations. So banning small vehicles like this with okay gas-mileage (which I would consider "ok" to be in the 20's range), but we aren't improving the environment, since consumers are now just pushed to huge vehicles with gas mileage in the high teens.
I wonder if a fuel economy standard that ignores vehicle size would be viable. That would advantage the lightest, most aerodynamic cars and make big vehicles expensive. Some people need big vehicles, but increasing costs for those people might be an acceptable tradeoff for making the average car smaller with the inherent benefits to fuel economy and reduced danger to other road users.
So many regulations could be streamlined and IMO made much more effective if they were just designed around the simplest way to make people pay for their negative externalities. Carbon taxes and congestion pricing are great examples of this. Instead we have Byzantine regulations like these with unintended consequences like conditioning everyone into thinking they need a 5000lb monster truck.
I've never driven the R35 -- it never particularly interested me, largely due to the dual clutch transmission but also because of the size. But I was in Japan in December and took the opportunity to rent an R34 GT-R which was just such a treat. I get the irony -- the R34 was a huge car for its time as well, especially in Japan. These cars always did punch above their weight, though.
As much as I have little interest in the R35 due to its transmission, I still think it was the correct choice- the GT-R was always the tech-forward, throw-the-kitchen-sink-at-it, performance-first car, it was never meant to be the lightweight purist choice.
I am aware that a stick shift has better "feel", but if that is the comparison (as I am assuming due to you mentioning the R34) a dual clutch is superior in every other way except weight.
Sure, feel is very important, but refusing to even drive one ?
Feel. I enjoy driving any form of automatic less. If it has a powerband (eg, not an EV), I want to be in control of that powerband, and I want to be physically shifting because I enjoy the tactile sensation. FWIW, I own an EV as well as a car (SUV) with a conventional auto. It's just not my _preference_, particularly in a performance car.
Every paddle shift car I've driven (single clutch, dual clutch, conventional automatic), I just leave in auto mode. I don't find the paddles fun or engaging at all. I play with them for a few minutes, then let it do its automatic thing. I'm perplexed by people who use the paddles 95%+ of the time. If it's a superfluous action, I just stop doing it. (and then find myself annoyed it's in the wrong gear!)
I didn't say I refused to drive the R35, I just wouldn't buy one. I'd enjoy the _hell_ out of driving one.
> I am aware that a stick shift has better "feel", but if that is the comparison (as I am assuming due to you mentioning the R34) a dual clutch is superior in every other way except weight.
This is kind of like saying an engineered protein smoothie is better in every way than a steak.
Most of us are not driving around town doing time attacks. Driving "feel" is really the only thing that matters for enthusiasts.,
A DCT is superior in almost every situation except for when you just want to push a clutch in yourself. For a car that is primarily a toy, “fun” is a good enough reason to not consider a DCT. Obviously for lots of people getting the better performance is more fun, but I like driving manual and probably wouldn’t buying a consider a “fun” car without a stick shift.
Oh man, how do I tell if this is why I think my Lexus needs transmission work? At speed I don't even notice the transmission, but even 15% throttle off the line its like its missing shifts or something!
My Ford did this and it was a bad coilpack every time, but I have no other issues like that. I'll have to see if mine is DCT?
As long as you're stock or just doing some bolt ons and an E85/FF tune, the DCT is fine. If you're doing big power upgades, you will need to throw in a shep trans kit or something else, but you're gonna need forged con rods before that - you'll bend rods on a stock motor before you'll break the stock DCT.
It's also butter smooth compared to contemporary peer DCTs, like the getrag box that was thrown in the Ferrari 458 and AMG GT, though I personally prefer the feel of being kicked back into your seat at full throttle + highway speeds from the getrag box. It's fun, but not quite as punishing as a hard launch in a Model S Plaid, which feels more like the car is trying to relocate your kidneys to about 3 feet behind you.
The one exception to the smoothness of Nissan's DCT is slow right hand turns in 1st or 2nd. It seems to not want to upshift as quickly as you'd think it ought to in that situation more often than I would've preferred. But that's more of a minor QoL thing than a real problem, IMO.
A much bigger problem with the R35 is that if it ever gets towed without a flatbed (i.e. rear wheels on road), you grenade most of the drivetrain (including the DCT), and that's like $20k+ in parts before you even start counting labor.
Apples to oranges. It's along the lines of "if you're trying to get around the track fast, why not just use a motorcycle? It's superior in every way." Technically, yes, you will put down faster times on a bike. But it's not the same thing.
Likewise, stick shift vs autotragic is just not the same thing.
Lately there's been a lot of fanboyism around manual transmission in online car communities. It's either just a pretend purism, or that "car" enthusiasts being mostly enthused with the power plant than the whole system.
I think it's something that's coming about because of the level of performance reached by the average sports car - in prior eras, the actual mechanical challenge of making a car fast meant achieving higher and higher peak performance also required more engagement from the driver, and I think a lot of people implicitly conflated the two. Starting in the 2000s (and this is really where it's interesting to see the perspective here on the R35, because I recall this being a critique of the car at the time), computer-controlled transmissions, AWD, engine tuning, etc. took a lot of that out of the drivers' hands in the service of making the cars just absolutely brutally fast. EVs are the apex of this - the acceleration is ridiculous, the "skateboard" with all the heavy batteries at the bottom does wonders for keeping the cars planted, and the performance these cars can reach is astounding, but... it's boring. So now I think more people are coming around to the idea that sports car driving is not a numbers game - who can be the fastest around the lap - but an actual visceral hobby, something to engage the senses, and in many cases that almost requires the car to not be as fast or as capable as what you can get with more tech in the middle.
The R35 really was a bit of a pioneer in redefining "performance car" from some ultra-light RWD pocket rocket with white-knuckle, ****-puckering, hair-trigger inputs into some big heavy cruiser that your grandmother could comfortably drive around on a track, which is a similar philosophy to how Tesla led the EV revolution for perfomance enthusiasts and dethroned the ICE with the Plaid. Extensive computer-aided assistance and a higher weight, at the time the R35 came out, was bemoaned the same way car enthusiasts bemoan self-driving 9000lb EVs now. It was a bit ahead of it's time! I still remember the jokes about the R35 being the first performance car that came with "driver mod" from the factory :^)
It's not a new thing, it's always been a popular choice in the enthusiast community.
What's nice is finally the market is catching up with the manual (again).
It used to be the performance choice.
When the automatics/twin clutches got good in the 2000/2010 era, a lot of performance cars preferred the faster/easier transmission, and the people spending new-car money on performance cars opted for it (or were forced into it).
As with many things, the new-car-money people aren't a cross section of the enthusiast community, they have different preferences. Some want the latest tech, some want their expensive purchase to be easy to drive every day, etc.
But the used market has always valued the manual more highly than the new car market, and the lower-and-lower take rate of the manual in new cars means the values of the manual are stronger than ever. However, I can't remember a time when an automatic or twin clutch pulled more $ on the used market.
I'm not a car enthusiast, however having driven both manual and automatic cars I just find driving manual cars more fun, and I imagine a lot of enthusiasts do too. I feel more in control of the car, and getting good performance feels like it's taking skill, even in a slower car. I don't think I'd find anything satisfying about driving an automatic, but faster car, in the same way.
God forbid someone just enjoys engaging more of their body in the act of driving. What's next, pillorying retro-computing enthusiasts and accusing them of arrested development because no one legitimately enjoys old & slow computers?
It’s not, having driven manuals and automatics around the Nordschleife, automatic feels so uneventful. With manual one is constantly involved. Even paddle shifting is boring.
well the dct in the r35 specifically is made of $20,000 glass that cannot handle factory power with factory launch modes and Nissan yanked warranty support after the fact.
So that transmission specifically is definitely to be avoided.
I'll let the person I was doing track days with back then know that his gt-r transmission was just misinformed, it didn't actually need the repair bill. Thanks!
Having driven one, being able to throw it into a turn on a track with maximum glee is something else.
It's hard to talk about driving this kind of vehicle without driving it. What it looks like on paper, compared to how it handles driving is pretty interesting.
For example, some say it can oversteer on a track. It’s got some heft. But how it handles it is something to be appreciative of.
At the same time, you can throw it into a turn and see how it unexpectedly handles it well..
Also having driven a Mercedes GT-R on the same track, which is a rear wheel drive car, it's a different kind of blast driving, and steering with the rear.
Edit: Having read about it too, found the experience of driving not as I expected.
I got the opportunity to drive an R35 on track once, along with a 991.1 GT3-RS and a gallardo Spyder.
I didn't expect this at all, but the GT-R ended up blowing the 911 out of the water in terms of acceleration and just pure fun behind the wheel - maybe I was just a bit over-conscious of how much the 911 was worth when I was driving it?
It was an absolute laugh and I remember it just taking my breath away once the turbochargers really picked up...
Truly one of the greatest cars of its time, a snarling, cybernetic banshee that bent physics to its will; Now, just a fading watermark on the walls of history—a reminder of how high the tide once surged, before receding for good.
We've lost a lot of ground since the glory days of the mid 90's.
I mean, this is really about the model from 2007+. That model in particular was incredible at the time and the fact that it held on so long is remarkable.
Sad to see it go, but at the same time it’s been mostly the same car for 15 years.
It was a performance bargain at launch, but the rest of the automotive world has been catching up. You can now get nearly the same track performance at almost half the price.
The R35 will always retain a special place in the automotive world for being an AWD turbo platform with a lot of modification headroom. I’m not too surprised they’re discontinuing it after 15 years though.
Toyota meanwhile have made a point that all the front styling grilles in the Mk5 Supra can be opened up and used to house heat exchangers for tuners.
Nissan simply could’ve never acknowledged it. Instead made a point that the GT-R was untuneable, which to my knowledge, is the only time a car company has claimed such a thing.
> Toyota meanwhile have made a point that all the front styling grilles in the Mk5 Supra can be opened up and used to house heat exchangers for tuners.
Toyota has actually gone to extremes to lock down the Supra ECU to prevent tuning. Last I checked, only one company in the world had figured out how to unlock the ECU and you have to ship your ECU around the world to have them unlock it.
Do any countries' emissions regulations require manufacturers to actively try to prevent illegal modifications? It seems to me that wouldn't be the manufacturer's problem, and I can't recall hearing of a legal case where it was.
This seems more likely to be warranty-related since it's very easy to break mechanical parts by adjusting things like boost pressure and ignition timing.
Modifying modern cars for high performance impacts the emissions systems. In many cases the ECU modifications will actively defeat certain emission control measures to allow the higher power output without check engine lights, for example.
Showing a good faith effort that you've designed the emission compliance systems to be reliable and hard to defeat is part of the process.
There's a similar thing that happens with WiFi access points: You have to show that you've made an effort to prevent the end user from trivially modifying it for higher power output or other changes that would deviate from the way it was compliance tested.
GM also claimed that with the (I think) C7 corvette. “Encrypted” PCM programming meant it wasn’t possible to reflash, you could only go piggyback, or full standalone (or engine swap obviously) but you’d lose connectivity with a bunch of other modules. Got worked around relatively quickly, but still.
You have to read it with some context in mind, though. The Audi RS3 only scores that high because they had a factory option to ship it with 60 Treadwear track day tires.
On the more standard performance tires it dropped to around the ~150 mark on the chart.
Fun car, but I wouldn't put it in the same league for track performance. Put those same 60 Treadwear trackday tires on the GT-R, Mustang, or Supra and they'd all jump up the list too.
It's already gone. They stopped making them over a year ago and they seem to be finally off the Chevy website. Local dealers in my area still have some new inventory on the lot.
> meta: a bit confused about people comparing a muscle car to a japanese sports coupé.
Your concept of a muscle car is probably outdated if you don’t think they play in the same space. The American sports cars are very formidable
> there's more to a car than price and performance benchmarks.
Those of us who actually get on track do care about this stuff. I’d happily drive an ugly tin can from some obscure country if it performed well, was the right price, and was reliable.
The whole muscle car versus imports debate is more for the armchair car enthusiast and people who hang out in parking lots with their hoods up.
I'm confused about what this is trying to say. I assume the Mustang is the "muscle car" and the R35 is the "japanese sports coupe" but in many ways the R35 has been the blunt hammer muscle car of its era.
They're both fantastic cars on the track from all reports. I'm not sure whether you're denigrating the R35 ("just a sports coupe") or the Mustang ("just a muscle car") in that comment.
Also, price and performance benchmarks seem pretty darned important in the worlds these cars play in. We're not talking about minivans or even sport sedans here.
Well, Nissan also raised the base price by ~$30k without really changing much of anything. It was a bargain at the original $70k price point. At the current $100k+ (or over $200k for the nismo!) not so much.
Nissan had a huge amount of credibility in enthusiast car communities, not just with the GT-R but also the Nissan Z cars. Unfortunately, they chose not to continue in investing in those spaces, so they have slowly seen what was once a strength evaporate. It's like watching a body builder lose discipline and get fat but still hang out at the beach thinking he looks like he does 10 years ago. Sad!
The entire mid-range sports car industry had a big problem for a while where enthusiasts didn't buy many new cars. Everyone was waiting for someone else to buy new so they could buy used at a discount.
Porsche just had the best year for the 911 ever. I think the low-end sportscar market probably isn't highly profitable, but I think that if nissan had pursued a strategy other than "these sports car platforms were good once, let's never update them more than absolutely necessary" they would have the credibility to justify continuing to innovate closer to the top end of the market.
I think there's also intangible benefits related to brand image. Toyota doesn't sell millions of Supras or 86, but it's enough to break out of the "prius and rav4" mentality of the brand.
It's like the death of the manual. Enthusiasts are up in arms when only an automatic comes out. But do they buy the manual? No. Did they ever intend to? Who knows. Why design a car for no sales.
> Toyota introduced the manual-transmission GR Supra partway through 2023, finally putting a clutch pedal in its flagship sports car. It proved relatively popular, accounting for 43% of Supras sold in the US in 2023. For 2024, the manual take rate went up by quite a bit—Toyota tells us 65% of Supras sold here in 2024 were manuals.
My brother worked at Nissan back when the R35 was new and exciting.
It sounded like the ownership experience (at least in the US) was not good. Reliability and maintenance were bad. Word got out that it wasn't a fun car to own and then they got very hard to sell so the salesforce didn't even like them. Dealers didn't want to put them on the lot, etc..
And then it did the standard Japanese sports car thing where it languished without updates and got old and outdated compared to other brands' sports cars.
Nissan's Skyline/R35 lines were largely wildly expensive projects that Nissan had no business doing, at the expense of their company's future. They were a form of a charity (bless them) to the automotive world. But then they had to pivot hard (see Carlos Ghosn) to be try to be profitable and killed their brand. (There were of course other issues than just these projects, though.)
Most makes have a leading model that exemplifies a lot of the qualities that the other vehicles are inspired by. Doesn't have to be high volume to be successful.
One of the most fun experiences I have ever had in a car was traveling from Tokyo to the Friday night Daikoku car meetup in a GT-R Skyline. It was legit like being in a scene from Fast and the Furious, multiple GT-Rs cruising through traffic, girlfriends hanging out the windows filming with phones. Fire shooting out of exhaust pipes, it was unforgettable.
Driven the R35 in 2020. A lot of fun but definitely felt outdated by then.
It's a shame that Nissan somehow had all the cards right (a working man's super car under $100k) and fumbled so much by just not innovating in the 2010s. Their luxury brand Infiniti suffered as much as well. I don't know what they were doing.
> After nearly two decades of embarrassing supercars, Nissan has
is this intended to mean "After nearly two decades of making embarrassing supercars, Nissan has" or "After nearly two decades of embarrassing the supercars, Nissan has" ?
Umm, there are quite a few performance production cars? Mustang (ecoboost or gt), corvette, ct4/5-v blackwing, Nissan’s own Z, golf gti/r, to name a few.
Does Mazda even make a “performance” car? The mx-5 is an enthusiast car, definitely not a performance car by pretty much any metric
A joke i have on tap is when i see a GTR i say it has the second hottest rear end i've ever seen. When I'm get the inevitable follow up question i say "i married the first!". heh it still makes me chuckle.
Nissan is dying. It's time to accept it already. The moment they created a plastic oil pan, it's game over. Nobody cares about engineering anymore at Nissan.
You think Nissan is alone in this? You could have mentioned Nissan terrible CVT's or grenade prone variable compression engine but you stated something that in widely done in the auto industry now as being their issue when it the grand scheme of things doesnt even register.
BMW is considered relatively unreliable, categorized into "hasn't been that much expensive for me so far" tier by Japanese standards. So that's probably not a great counter example.
Fair comment about BMW. So another data point ... Ford also supplied their F150 trucks with plastic oil pans for a number of years. Not sure if that's still the case. But an F150 material decision is going to factor in hard use and reliability. So it's not like this is an insane design decision.
I agree it's suspicious to replace a traditionally metal motor part with plastic, but there's plenty of this history we've gotten past. Consider that people freaked out when intake manifolds started to move to plastic. Now it's quite normal. Even on Japanese motors. The benefits besides cost and weight include the ability to model and mold more complex geometries.
That’s if you view cars as boxes that go from A to B judged exclusively by their spec sheet. But if you viewed them as such, why would you have a Plaid instead of a basic long range S?
Maybe if the driver cares about performance, but is only capable of using their right foot. The only enthusiasm is being pushed into the seat at the peak of the traction of the tyres, for all of a moment before the speed limit restricts them again. All without any other theatre. I can see the appeal of being able to have that performance without drawing attention to yourself, but then you specifically clarify your statement by excluding tracks or technical (fun) roads.
…Strangely, I thought I liked the Plaid until writing this. I’m enthusiastic for what Tesla has done to the EV market, and the Model S appears to generally be a good car (all my experience is in the Model 3 my Dad has. I’d assume the experience is similar) but I can’t help but feel like they’ve made something so utterly uninteresting as their top of the line halo model. What could’ve been the GT-R of this era seems to have barely grazed the automotive community.
I don't think it could have been the GT-R of this era, because there is not going to be a GT-R of this era once R35 is gone.
To paraphrase one of my favourite motoring journalists (translated):
"Will EVs kill motoring? No, but only because it's already dead - tuning died several years earlier. EVs are only a transition technology. In 30 years driving will be this lame thing that only old people do."
I find it hard to seriously disagree with him on that.
The problem here is that the Plaid is not the fastest car. On Nürburgring Nordschleife, GT-R (2013) is faster than the latest Plaid record(2023) by 6 seconds, top trim Taycan by 18 seconds, slower than the fastest on Wikipedia by 56 seconds, etc etc.
It's just not that fast. Most people here wouldn't know that, after hearing 2.1 seconds 0-60, "the fastest production EV", so on. No, Elon just never made that work. literally couldn't beat 10 years old car.
You can buy the cheapest R35 used, and theoretically faster on the ring than ANY Tesla.
My girlfriend's car is currently awaiting a new engine at the dealership. It'd take about 30 years to build up the infrastructure in my city (a major one in the Lower Midwest) to get to where it would need to be for her to not need anything other than public transit, and that's assuming nothing else changes (like even further urban sprawl) and that we had the political will to start today - we don't.
Maybe in Europe, Asia, and a select few North American cities it'll be dead, but there will still be plenty of places where it's necessary.
I can't say I know exactly what that journalist had in mind, but my understanding is that he was referring to the fact that younger generations (in the geopolitical west) aren't that interested in cars and both the market and legislation are responding to this shift.
It’s difficult to argue against that, and I think I agree. A part of me considers it the right way for the world, considering that driving is one of the most dangerous things we partake in regularly, that it should be demoted to just a hobby. But I have reservations about that too. I’m trying to stay (maybe out of delusion) hopeful that driving will still matter and be enjoyable.
I think tuning needs a readjustment in perception. We’ve removed one way to tune, power, and I guess it’s more difficult to get excited about suspension geometry or alignment or handling balance vs a big shiny Garrett turbo, but the fact is we’re still talking about boxes with four wheels at the bottom. Tuning is, and always has been, about how to make a car use those tyres to their full effect.
The GT-R, as impressive as it was, also had its detractors for being a computer on wheels. Car lovers have always disliked techy cars and longed for simpler driving experiences. I know people who still insist carbs are better. I don’t see why the Plaid couldn’t have made Porsche miserable in all the same ways the GT-R did.
> Car lovers have always disliked techy cars and longed for simpler driving experiences.
I consider myself a car enthusiast, but can't relate to this. I was always into cars for all the clever ways humanity made things on four wheels go, not the stuff that was associated with it.
Like, I still can't stand driving a regular automatic, but mainly due to how badly it translates my intent into motion. Well, except for CVTs, but they in turn are to me an inelegant and over complicated solution.
Unless you live near a drag strip I'd argue that the Plaid's one trick is wasted on public roads. 0-60 in 2 seconds is not even enjoyable for most people. But if it was, I'd like that joy to last more than 2 seconds (without losing my license).
A sports car is something you wake up early on a Sunday morning to drive to a technical mountain road for no other reason than to derive pleasure from the human-machine interaction. Which you can do at legal speeds. Plenty of sports car owners do also go out of their way to visit the track.
How many Plaid owners excitedly set their alarm for 5am so they can enjoy a twisty mountain road a few hours away?
In the enthusiast market we're seeing the opposite. Evs have made speed routine, but dull the driving experience part. 90's and 2000's sports cars with manuals are worth sometimes 100ks more than those with paddels, even though they are slower.
The gtr has been essentially the same platform since its release, when the competition has gotten extremely tight. Then there's nissan's issues, ceo getting arrested, money troubles, uninspiring lineup that mostly sells to fleets/rentals, thus leading to inability to invest in halo vehicles.
If the plaid was making cars like this obsolete why are we seeing insane demand for the 911?
Absolutely. My brother in law has had a Model S then an R1T, and now a Cybertruck (that he plans to sell). The acceleration is fun as hell, when you do it. 100%.
Any of those three, thinking about cornering, handling, really driving, I have an RS 5, and that thing handles like it is on rails. Taking a corner too hard in his Model S and I was hanging on for dear life as I felt the control sliding away.
I recently got an 81 Vanagon, it's got all of that except hydraulic steering and low weight, but I only have the two front seats which helps with weight a bit, and it's probably close to a light truck weight, back when they made light trucks. It's a lot of fun. No power steering, no power windows, no power from the engine, but I get to stomp on the throttle all the time.
Later model years added all sorts of bells and whistles like water cooling, power steering, and signs of life from the engine, but who needs that.
Ah, that joy. Had it crossing the Atlas mountain in Morocco, in a 35 HP FWD car. Low weight and simplicity, that's the key. Yeah, that won't return any time soon.
At the border crossing, we shared the queue with two of the five teams (according to Wikipedia) participating in the first ever 4L Trophy. When I'm gone (well, when we're gone, me and my peers at the time), those memories will be gone, it's how it is.
Agreed. We bought my wife an NC last year when the criteria was “cheap, petrol, naturally aspirated and Japanese”. The criteria was in response to my Land Rover (Discovery / LR4) which is none of those things and becoming a bore.
After stealing the MX-5 whenever I get the chance I now wish we could run two. That would make family trips troublesome though…
I prefer NA but I can have a lot of joy with a proper turbo or two, or a supercharger. There’s a big difference between a turbo used to pass emissions standards and one installed for fun
I still remember the day I took an audi quattro (not mine, a car like that was way out of my league financially back then) for the first time up a mountain pass road near my home in the 80s.
What an effing rush that was.
Strongly agree for the rest of the list though and would add: "mechanical handbrake" to the list.
These days cars have ugly little electronic handbrakes with a LED on it, what a load of shite.
The R35 started development in 2000 and was launched in 2007. It has had a number of updates along the way, but you can only push an old platform so far. The R35 has already been discontinued in most markets because it can't comply with new regulations. It's sad to say goodbye to an icon, but the R35 has remained in production for far longer than anyone would reasonably have expected.
It probably doesn't help that the car is so closely associated with Carlos Ghosn.
It's a really interesting car. Right there with the Honda S2000 one of the most interesting cars in the last 25 years. Sadly, both Nissan and Honda have failed to create a saga.
2 sports car purchases ago, the S2000 was near the top of my list, but came in 2nd place because it was going to be my only car, and I figured a 2 seat hatchback was more practical than a 2 seat convertible.
I think I made the right choice though both the S2k and the car I bought increased in value over the following 15 years.
I'd still love to own an S2k, but the way values have continued to levitate actually pushed me into a Boxster instead. I still think I'll own one some day. The s2k is one of the most attractive sports cars in history, IMO. I think that was helped by the fact that they never replaced it -- a replacement model always 'ages' the previous one.
Did you buy Z3 in the end? :D
I had a Z3MC for 18 years, yeah.
maybe the FF or GTC4Luso?
No one has ever cross-shopped an S2k and an FF.
Oh, I was thinking clown shoe cars in general.
both those car are 4 seaters.
S2000's are great. The only thing I hear about them is they leak or burn oil, and once that's handled... good times.
That’s mostly the AP1 with the 9,0000 rpm rev limit.
Wanna know how I _handle_ it? I check the oil before I drive it and top it up. Perhaps I could swap retainers and banjo bolts but I’m lazy and checking the oil is easy. I pop the hood when I pull into my garage to remind me to check the oil before racing off.
I agree on just checking the oil and topping it up.
Luckily there’s more options too if it’s too late and there oil leaking beyond just burning a little the gaskets need to be dealt with.
A nice hack is also to meet a Honda mechanic who can take care of it privately.
Oil burning was a common problem for early S2000s (specifically AP1 motors) and AFAIK (having been an owner for 10+ years and read nearly every s2ki/s2kca forum post over the last 20 years), the problem was never truly solved in a documented, reproducible way.
Replacing the valve stems, seals, changing oil brands/weights, etc. have all been a bit unscientific and for me, the only thing that’s “worked” was not overfilling (as anxious owners tend to do), checking early and often, and ensuring I read the dipstick correctly (the trick on this motor is to read both sides of the dipstick).
Unfortunately, Honda always held firm on the "1 litre per 1000 miles is considered normal” and the problem went away with the F22C/AP2 motor. I've learned to live with it for an otherwise extremely reliable ownership experience.
I just purchased an AP2 back in July, i've taken it to the track twice already. It may not be as fast as some of the other new mid/entry level tuner/performance vehicles that have come out in the last few years, but I bet have the biggest smile on my face than anyone out there.
The R-36 is most welcome.
> The R35 has already been discontinued in most markets because it can't comply with new regulations.
Another thing to add to the list of things to love about the R35.
Unfortunately, in the USA, the regulations essentially just force manufacturers to put the engine into a huge body just so they fall under different (less-strict) emissions regulations. So banning small vehicles like this with okay gas-mileage (which I would consider "ok" to be in the 20's range), but we aren't improving the environment, since consumers are now just pushed to huge vehicles with gas mileage in the high teens.
I wonder if a fuel economy standard that ignores vehicle size would be viable. That would advantage the lightest, most aerodynamic cars and make big vehicles expensive. Some people need big vehicles, but increasing costs for those people might be an acceptable tradeoff for making the average car smaller with the inherent benefits to fuel economy and reduced danger to other road users.
So many regulations could be streamlined and IMO made much more effective if they were just designed around the simplest way to make people pay for their negative externalities. Carbon taxes and congestion pricing are great examples of this. Instead we have Byzantine regulations like these with unintended consequences like conditioning everyone into thinking they need a 5000lb monster truck.
It would totally be viable. Just politically difficult for timid politicians
like simply inflating gas prices?
Why is that something to love? Making it more exclusive to other markets?
I interpreted it a "regulations bad".
I've never driven the R35 -- it never particularly interested me, largely due to the dual clutch transmission but also because of the size. But I was in Japan in December and took the opportunity to rent an R34 GT-R which was just such a treat. I get the irony -- the R34 was a huge car for its time as well, especially in Japan. These cars always did punch above their weight, though.
As much as I have little interest in the R35 due to its transmission, I still think it was the correct choice- the GT-R was always the tech-forward, throw-the-kitchen-sink-at-it, performance-first car, it was never meant to be the lightweight purist choice.
Why does the dual clutch transmission repel you ?
I am aware that a stick shift has better "feel", but if that is the comparison (as I am assuming due to you mentioning the R34) a dual clutch is superior in every other way except weight.
Sure, feel is very important, but refusing to even drive one ?
Not judging, genuinely curious.
I don't think anyone is arguing that the DCT isn't absolutely dominating from a technical excellence standpoint.
I think the argument is that the better "feel" is far more important than these engineering figures.
Feel. I enjoy driving any form of automatic less. If it has a powerband (eg, not an EV), I want to be in control of that powerband, and I want to be physically shifting because I enjoy the tactile sensation. FWIW, I own an EV as well as a car (SUV) with a conventional auto. It's just not my _preference_, particularly in a performance car.
Every paddle shift car I've driven (single clutch, dual clutch, conventional automatic), I just leave in auto mode. I don't find the paddles fun or engaging at all. I play with them for a few minutes, then let it do its automatic thing. I'm perplexed by people who use the paddles 95%+ of the time. If it's a superfluous action, I just stop doing it. (and then find myself annoyed it's in the wrong gear!)
I didn't say I refused to drive the R35, I just wouldn't buy one. I'd enjoy the _hell_ out of driving one.
> I am aware that a stick shift has better "feel", but if that is the comparison (as I am assuming due to you mentioning the R34) a dual clutch is superior in every other way except weight.
This is kind of like saying an engineered protein smoothie is better in every way than a steak.
Most of us are not driving around town doing time attacks. Driving "feel" is really the only thing that matters for enthusiasts.,
A DCT is superior in almost every situation except for when you just want to push a clutch in yourself. For a car that is primarily a toy, “fun” is a good enough reason to not consider a DCT. Obviously for lots of people getting the better performance is more fun, but I like driving manual and probably wouldn’t buying a consider a “fun” car without a stick shift.
Yeah I was curious about this as well. I really like the DSG gearboxes that are used in the Golf, maybe the tech is/was older?
The shifts can be slightly rougher than a traditional clutch, and there have been some notable DCTs quite prone to failure.
How rough they are is dependent on programming. The Getrag DCT I had in my BMW was amazing and beat the ZF-8 on crispiness, speed, and weight.
Where the ZF-8 wins is stop & go traffic. The DCT will do its very best to minimize slip, where the ZF-8 just doesn't lock up the lock-up clutch.
But once you're moving the DCT was butter smooth, with selectable engagement speed.
Oh man, how do I tell if this is why I think my Lexus needs transmission work? At speed I don't even notice the transmission, but even 15% throttle off the line its like its missing shifts or something!
My Ford did this and it was a bad coilpack every time, but I have no other issues like that. I'll have to see if mine is DCT?
My car does not have DCT. so it just has a wack transmission!
As long as you're stock or just doing some bolt ons and an E85/FF tune, the DCT is fine. If you're doing big power upgades, you will need to throw in a shep trans kit or something else, but you're gonna need forged con rods before that - you'll bend rods on a stock motor before you'll break the stock DCT.
It's also butter smooth compared to contemporary peer DCTs, like the getrag box that was thrown in the Ferrari 458 and AMG GT, though I personally prefer the feel of being kicked back into your seat at full throttle + highway speeds from the getrag box. It's fun, but not quite as punishing as a hard launch in a Model S Plaid, which feels more like the car is trying to relocate your kidneys to about 3 feet behind you.
The one exception to the smoothness of Nissan's DCT is slow right hand turns in 1st or 2nd. It seems to not want to upshift as quickly as you'd think it ought to in that situation more often than I would've preferred. But that's more of a minor QoL thing than a real problem, IMO.
A much bigger problem with the R35 is that if it ever gets towed without a flatbed (i.e. rear wheels on road), you grenade most of the drivetrain (including the DCT), and that's like $20k+ in parts before you even start counting labor.
Apples to oranges. It's along the lines of "if you're trying to get around the track fast, why not just use a motorcycle? It's superior in every way." Technically, yes, you will put down faster times on a bike. But it's not the same thing.
Likewise, stick shift vs autotragic is just not the same thing.
> Technically, yes, you will put down faster times on a bike.
Motorcycle track rider here. They're generally slower than performance cars around the track due to reduced cornering traction and therefore speed.
As someone that had an Evo X, I concur. Motorcyclists used to pull up beside me after a mountain run and ask what it was.
AWD with active Yaw control sticks to the road at nearly any speed, a motorcycle can only lean so far.
I think it is quite the leap to equate stick vs dct to car vs motorcycle.
Some people just like shifting manually. It's a preference thing.
I agree that DCTs are great. Modern DCTs are amazing. I don't personally feel that DCTs take away from the driving experience at all.
It does get tiresome when people become snobby about driving stickshift, though.
The DCT on the GT-R definitely wasn't as rough around the edges as I anticipated it might be.
Lately there's been a lot of fanboyism around manual transmission in online car communities. It's either just a pretend purism, or that "car" enthusiasts being mostly enthused with the power plant than the whole system.
I think it's something that's coming about because of the level of performance reached by the average sports car - in prior eras, the actual mechanical challenge of making a car fast meant achieving higher and higher peak performance also required more engagement from the driver, and I think a lot of people implicitly conflated the two. Starting in the 2000s (and this is really where it's interesting to see the perspective here on the R35, because I recall this being a critique of the car at the time), computer-controlled transmissions, AWD, engine tuning, etc. took a lot of that out of the drivers' hands in the service of making the cars just absolutely brutally fast. EVs are the apex of this - the acceleration is ridiculous, the "skateboard" with all the heavy batteries at the bottom does wonders for keeping the cars planted, and the performance these cars can reach is astounding, but... it's boring. So now I think more people are coming around to the idea that sports car driving is not a numbers game - who can be the fastest around the lap - but an actual visceral hobby, something to engage the senses, and in many cases that almost requires the car to not be as fast or as capable as what you can get with more tech in the middle.
The R35 really was a bit of a pioneer in redefining "performance car" from some ultra-light RWD pocket rocket with white-knuckle, ****-puckering, hair-trigger inputs into some big heavy cruiser that your grandmother could comfortably drive around on a track, which is a similar philosophy to how Tesla led the EV revolution for perfomance enthusiasts and dethroned the ICE with the Plaid. Extensive computer-aided assistance and a higher weight, at the time the R35 came out, was bemoaned the same way car enthusiasts bemoan self-driving 9000lb EVs now. It was a bit ahead of it's time! I still remember the jokes about the R35 being the first performance car that came with "driver mod" from the factory :^)
It's not a new thing, it's always been a popular choice in the enthusiast community.
What's nice is finally the market is catching up with the manual (again).
It used to be the performance choice.
When the automatics/twin clutches got good in the 2000/2010 era, a lot of performance cars preferred the faster/easier transmission, and the people spending new-car money on performance cars opted for it (or were forced into it).
As with many things, the new-car-money people aren't a cross section of the enthusiast community, they have different preferences. Some want the latest tech, some want their expensive purchase to be easy to drive every day, etc.
But the used market has always valued the manual more highly than the new car market, and the lower-and-lower take rate of the manual in new cars means the values of the manual are stronger than ever. However, I can't remember a time when an automatic or twin clutch pulled more $ on the used market.
I'm not a car enthusiast, however having driven both manual and automatic cars I just find driving manual cars more fun, and I imagine a lot of enthusiasts do too. I feel more in control of the car, and getting good performance feels like it's taking skill, even in a slower car. I don't think I'd find anything satisfying about driving an automatic, but faster car, in the same way.
God forbid someone just enjoys engaging more of their body in the act of driving. What's next, pillorying retro-computing enthusiasts and accusing them of arrested development because no one legitimately enjoys old & slow computers?
It’s not, having driven manuals and automatics around the Nordschleife, automatic feels so uneventful. With manual one is constantly involved. Even paddle shifting is boring.
Shifting manually is fun, that's it for me. It's like playing an arcade game while driving, it's more to do.
Assuming you’re driving a sports car for fun and not to win a race - isn’t feel the whole point?
well the dct in the r35 specifically is made of $20,000 glass that cannot handle factory power with factory launch modes and Nissan yanked warranty support after the fact.
So that transmission specifically is definitely to be avoided.
> factory launch modes
There is no factory launch mode on R35. That a snow mode that was misused as launch control, that's why nissan yanked warranty.
I remember reading about that - Managing use of launch control on a Tesla, or any vehicle is probably a mindful risk.
I do think there are some tuners that have beefed it up.
Your information sounds like what was being said back in 2011, which is to say is misinformed.
I'll let the person I was doing track days with back then know that his gt-r transmission was just misinformed, it didn't actually need the repair bill. Thanks!
Oh it was a track day! That's all we need to know....so many other factors are at play here.
Having driven one, being able to throw it into a turn on a track with maximum glee is something else.
It's hard to talk about driving this kind of vehicle without driving it. What it looks like on paper, compared to how it handles driving is pretty interesting.
For example, some say it can oversteer on a track. It’s got some heft. But how it handles it is something to be appreciative of.
At the same time, you can throw it into a turn and see how it unexpectedly handles it well..
Also having driven a Mercedes GT-R on the same track, which is a rear wheel drive car, it's a different kind of blast driving, and steering with the rear.
Edit: Having read about it too, found the experience of driving not as I expected.
FWIW the R35 is used quite a lot in Japan still for things like time attack. Despite the DCT it is a rather capable car.
I think that's a major reason it IS a capable car. It shifts faster, plus all form of autos are better at holding boost between shifts.
I wasn't sure how much the DCT would be different, to be honest, when you're going fast.. you're in gear most of the time. :)
I got the opportunity to drive an R35 on track once, along with a 991.1 GT3-RS and a gallardo Spyder.
I didn't expect this at all, but the GT-R ended up blowing the 911 out of the water in terms of acceleration and just pure fun behind the wheel - maybe I was just a bit over-conscious of how much the 911 was worth when I was driving it?
It was an absolute laugh and I remember it just taking my breath away once the turbochargers really picked up...
Truly one of the greatest cars of its time, a snarling, cybernetic banshee that bent physics to its will; Now, just a fading watermark on the walls of history—a reminder of how high the tide once surged, before receding for good.
We've lost a lot of ground since the glory days of the mid 90's.
I mean, this is really about the model from 2007+. That model in particular was incredible at the time and the fact that it held on so long is remarkable.
> high the tide once surged, before receding for good
r/unexpectedhuntersthompson
Legit what i was aiming for :)
Sad to see it go, but at the same time it’s been mostly the same car for 15 years.
It was a performance bargain at launch, but the rest of the automotive world has been catching up. You can now get nearly the same track performance at almost half the price.
The R35 will always retain a special place in the automotive world for being an AWD turbo platform with a lot of modification headroom. I’m not too surprised they’re discontinuing it after 15 years though.
It’s hilarious that Nissan ever claimed it was impossible to tune considering all the things done to it in those eighteen years.
Having a tuneable car is a regulatory risk.
Automakers need to take the stance that their cars are to be operated as-is. Claiming it’s not tuneable is important for appearances.
Toyota meanwhile have made a point that all the front styling grilles in the Mk5 Supra can be opened up and used to house heat exchangers for tuners.
Nissan simply could’ve never acknowledged it. Instead made a point that the GT-R was untuneable, which to my knowledge, is the only time a car company has claimed such a thing.
> Toyota meanwhile have made a point that all the front styling grilles in the Mk5 Supra can be opened up and used to house heat exchangers for tuners.
Heat exchangers don’t modify emissions performance. It’s ECU tuning that they’re worried about.
Toyota has actually gone to extremes to lock down the Supra ECU to prevent tuning. Last I checked, only one company in the world had figured out how to unlock the ECU and you have to ship your ECU around the world to have them unlock it.
Do any countries' emissions regulations require manufacturers to actively try to prevent illegal modifications? It seems to me that wouldn't be the manufacturer's problem, and I can't recall hearing of a legal case where it was.
This seems more likely to be warranty-related since it's very easy to break mechanical parts by adjusting things like boost pressure and ignition timing.
Yes, the laws effectively require this.
Modifying modern cars for high performance impacts the emissions systems. In many cases the ECU modifications will actively defeat certain emission control measures to allow the higher power output without check engine lights, for example.
Showing a good faith effort that you've designed the emission compliance systems to be reliable and hard to defeat is part of the process.
There's a similar thing that happens with WiFi access points: You have to show that you've made an effort to prevent the end user from trivially modifying it for higher power output or other changes that would deviate from the way it was compliance tested.
Correct. Sadly, it's not cheap to unlock, but it's easy and worth the price.
GM also claimed that with the (I think) C7 corvette. “Encrypted” PCM programming meant it wasn’t possible to reflash, you could only go piggyback, or full standalone (or engine swap obviously) but you’d lose connectivity with a bunch of other modules. Got worked around relatively quickly, but still.
Can you give me an example for the same performance at half price?
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a23319884/lightning-la...
The GT-R appears three times, at 75, 76, and 93. The Mustang Dark Horse, Audi RS3, and Supra are all about $60K.
Lightning Lap is great and I'm glad C&D does it
You have to read it with some context in mind, though. The Audi RS3 only scores that high because they had a factory option to ship it with 60 Treadwear track day tires.
On the more standard performance tires it dropped to around the ~150 mark on the chart.
Fun car, but I wouldn't put it in the same league for track performance. Put those same 60 Treadwear trackday tires on the GT-R, Mustang, or Supra and they'd all jump up the list too.
That makes sense, I was surprised to see the RS3 that high on the list.
Camaro ZL1 is close on performance and nearly half the price.
Unfortunately also discontinued.
Base C8 Corvette models are surprisingly close at a fraction of the price. The top tier C8 models are even faster.
Close on performance in a straight line isn't really close on performance.
The Camaro might also be going away (again) soon.
It's already gone. They stopped making them over a year ago and they seem to be finally off the Chevy website. Local dealers in my area still have some new inventory on the lot.
> Camaro ZL1 is close on performance
Are those 4wd ?
Nurburing times are impressive - both stock, and eventually reported to be modified GT-Rs for the track.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_N%C3%BCrburgring_Nords...
C8 corvette as well
meta: a bit confused about people comparing a muscle car to a japanese sports coupé.
there's more to a car than price and performance benchmarks.
> meta: a bit confused about people comparing a muscle car to a japanese sports coupé.
Your concept of a muscle car is probably outdated if you don’t think they play in the same space. The American sports cars are very formidable
> there's more to a car than price and performance benchmarks.
Those of us who actually get on track do care about this stuff. I’d happily drive an ugly tin can from some obscure country if it performed well, was the right price, and was reliable.
The whole muscle car versus imports debate is more for the armchair car enthusiast and people who hang out in parking lots with their hoods up.
I'm confused about what this is trying to say. I assume the Mustang is the "muscle car" and the R35 is the "japanese sports coupe" but in many ways the R35 has been the blunt hammer muscle car of its era.
They're both fantastic cars on the track from all reports. I'm not sure whether you're denigrating the R35 ("just a sports coupe") or the Mustang ("just a muscle car") in that comment.
Also, price and performance benchmarks seem pretty darned important in the worlds these cars play in. We're not talking about minivans or even sport sedans here.
Subaru WRX
Not even in the same ballpark
Well, Nissan also raised the base price by ~$30k without really changing much of anything. It was a bargain at the original $70k price point. At the current $100k+ (or over $200k for the nismo!) not so much.
Nissan had a huge amount of credibility in enthusiast car communities, not just with the GT-R but also the Nissan Z cars. Unfortunately, they chose not to continue in investing in those spaces, so they have slowly seen what was once a strength evaporate. It's like watching a body builder lose discipline and get fat but still hang out at the beach thinking he looks like he does 10 years ago. Sad!
> Unfortunately, they chose not to continue in investing in those spaces
Unfortunately, car enthusiasts chose not to continue investing in buying those cars
Annual GT-R sales were in the hundreds: https://www.thedrive.com/news/nissan-sold-just-one-gt-r-a-da...
The entire mid-range sports car industry had a big problem for a while where enthusiasts didn't buy many new cars. Everyone was waiting for someone else to buy new so they could buy used at a discount.
Porsche just had the best year for the 911 ever. I think the low-end sportscar market probably isn't highly profitable, but I think that if nissan had pursued a strategy other than "these sports car platforms were good once, let's never update them more than absolutely necessary" they would have the credibility to justify continuing to innovate closer to the top end of the market.
I think there's also intangible benefits related to brand image. Toyota doesn't sell millions of Supras or 86, but it's enough to break out of the "prius and rav4" mentality of the brand.
It's like the death of the manual. Enthusiasts are up in arms when only an automatic comes out. But do they buy the manual? No. Did they ever intend to? Who knows. Why design a car for no sales.
> Toyota introduced the manual-transmission GR Supra partway through 2023, finally putting a clutch pedal in its flagship sports car. It proved relatively popular, accounting for 43% of Supras sold in the US in 2023. For 2024, the manual take rate went up by quite a bit—Toyota tells us 65% of Supras sold here in 2024 were manuals.
https://www.motor1.com/news/746173/toyota-supra-manual-take-...
My brother worked at Nissan back when the R35 was new and exciting.
It sounded like the ownership experience (at least in the US) was not good. Reliability and maintenance were bad. Word got out that it wasn't a fun car to own and then they got very hard to sell so the salesforce didn't even like them. Dealers didn't want to put them on the lot, etc..
And then it did the standard Japanese sports car thing where it languished without updates and got old and outdated compared to other brands' sports cars.
It was always a stiff ride, but maybe the Fast & Furious generation only saw the cars and didn't drive the R-34 and R-33.
All good though, GT-R deserves the love for the fun it has, like the time it was banned from a racing series for winning too much
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Australian_Touring_Car_se...
Nissan's Skyline/R35 lines were largely wildly expensive projects that Nissan had no business doing, at the expense of their company's future. They were a form of a charity (bless them) to the automotive world. But then they had to pivot hard (see Carlos Ghosn) to be try to be profitable and killed their brand. (There were of course other issues than just these projects, though.)
RIP Nissan.
Most makes have a leading model that exemplifies a lot of the qualities that the other vehicles are inspired by. Doesn't have to be high volume to be successful.
One of the most fun experiences I have ever had in a car was traveling from Tokyo to the Friday night Daikoku car meetup in a GT-R Skyline. It was legit like being in a scene from Fast and the Furious, multiple GT-Rs cruising through traffic, girlfriends hanging out the windows filming with phones. Fire shooting out of exhaust pipes, it was unforgettable.
I bought one of the first 2012’s available in the US. Flew out to St. Louis to pick it up.
It was a very cool car. Drew way too much attention for my taste. And it was very unrefined in many ways that I didn’t expect.
It was a special car, but I ended up not liking it that much. I sold it after about 6 months.
Maybe once a year I have a very vivid dream about it. Kind of sad to hear this is the end of the line for it.
Driven the R35 in 2020. A lot of fun but definitely felt outdated by then.
It's a shame that Nissan somehow had all the cards right (a working man's super car under $100k) and fumbled so much by just not innovating in the 2010s. Their luxury brand Infiniti suffered as much as well. I don't know what they were doing.
> After nearly two decades of embarrassing supercars, Nissan has
is this intended to mean "After nearly two decades of making embarrassing supercars, Nissan has" or "After nearly two decades of embarrassing the supercars, Nissan has" ?
Guess I’ll get a Supra instead if my paper money ever pans out
Surely this means we will see a 2027 R390.
Well I feel like Mazda is the last true hope for performance production cars.
I wouldn't call the MX-5 a performance car, but it is certainly one of the purest sports cars on the market.
Not true! Look at toyota, yaris, corolla! Even rumors of celica and mr2 making a come back
Did I miss Mazda releasing the FF model? I didn't know they had a performance car on the market currently.
The mx5 is beautiful
My favorite car to drive. Exceptional driving experience and cheap.
Trunk is alright for groceries (for one or two people).
Umm, there are quite a few performance production cars? Mustang (ecoboost or gt), corvette, ct4/5-v blackwing, Nissan’s own Z, golf gti/r, to name a few.
Does Mazda even make a “performance” car? The mx-5 is an enthusiast car, definitely not a performance car by pretty much any metric
Even lotus is getting enshittified :(
Subaru BRZ enters the chat
A joke i have on tap is when i see a GTR i say it has the second hottest rear end i've ever seen. When I'm get the inevitable follow up question i say "i married the first!". heh it still makes me chuckle.
Nissan is dying. It's time to accept it already. The moment they created a plastic oil pan, it's game over. Nobody cares about engineering anymore at Nissan.
You think Nissan is alone in this? You could have mentioned Nissan terrible CVT's or grenade prone variable compression engine but you stated something that in widely done in the auto industry now as being their issue when it the grand scheme of things doesnt even register.
> The moment they created a plastic oil pan, it's game over. Nobody cares about engineering anymore at Nissan.
BMW has put plastic oil pans on a variety of their models for over a decade. N20 motors. The G90 M5. Others, maybe.
I'm not saying it's a good idea, just a counterpoint that a plastic oil pan design doesn't invalidate other good engineering.
BMW is considered relatively unreliable, categorized into "hasn't been that much expensive for me so far" tier by Japanese standards. So that's probably not a great counter example.
Fair comment about BMW. So another data point ... Ford also supplied their F150 trucks with plastic oil pans for a number of years. Not sure if that's still the case. But an F150 material decision is going to factor in hard use and reliability. So it's not like this is an insane design decision.
I agree it's suspicious to replace a traditionally metal motor part with plastic, but there's plenty of this history we've gotten past. Consider that people freaked out when intake manifolds started to move to plastic. Now it's quite normal. Even on Japanese motors. The benefits besides cost and weight include the ability to model and mold more complex geometries.
It also could be engineered maintenance.
Unless you live near a track or some really technical mountain roads a Plaid makes cars like this obsolete.
That’s if you view cars as boxes that go from A to B judged exclusively by their spec sheet. But if you viewed them as such, why would you have a Plaid instead of a basic long range S?
Maybe if the driver cares about performance, but is only capable of using their right foot. The only enthusiasm is being pushed into the seat at the peak of the traction of the tyres, for all of a moment before the speed limit restricts them again. All without any other theatre. I can see the appeal of being able to have that performance without drawing attention to yourself, but then you specifically clarify your statement by excluding tracks or technical (fun) roads.
…Strangely, I thought I liked the Plaid until writing this. I’m enthusiastic for what Tesla has done to the EV market, and the Model S appears to generally be a good car (all my experience is in the Model 3 my Dad has. I’d assume the experience is similar) but I can’t help but feel like they’ve made something so utterly uninteresting as their top of the line halo model. What could’ve been the GT-R of this era seems to have barely grazed the automotive community.
I don't think it could have been the GT-R of this era, because there is not going to be a GT-R of this era once R35 is gone.
To paraphrase one of my favourite motoring journalists (translated):
"Will EVs kill motoring? No, but only because it's already dead - tuning died several years earlier. EVs are only a transition technology. In 30 years driving will be this lame thing that only old people do."
I find it hard to seriously disagree with him on that.
The problem here is that the Plaid is not the fastest car. On Nürburgring Nordschleife, GT-R (2013) is faster than the latest Plaid record(2023) by 6 seconds, top trim Taycan by 18 seconds, slower than the fastest on Wikipedia by 56 seconds, etc etc.
It's just not that fast. Most people here wouldn't know that, after hearing 2.1 seconds 0-60, "the fastest production EV", so on. No, Elon just never made that work. literally couldn't beat 10 years old car.
You can buy the cheapest R35 used, and theoretically faster on the ring than ANY Tesla.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_N%C3%BCrburgring_Nords...
Depends on where you're at.
My girlfriend's car is currently awaiting a new engine at the dealership. It'd take about 30 years to build up the infrastructure in my city (a major one in the Lower Midwest) to get to where it would need to be for her to not need anything other than public transit, and that's assuming nothing else changes (like even further urban sprawl) and that we had the political will to start today - we don't.
Maybe in Europe, Asia, and a select few North American cities it'll be dead, but there will still be plenty of places where it's necessary.
they are likely referring to autonomous vehicles, not public transit
I can't say I know exactly what that journalist had in mind, but my understanding is that he was referring to the fact that younger generations (in the geopolitical west) aren't that interested in cars and both the market and legislation are responding to this shift.
It’s difficult to argue against that, and I think I agree. A part of me considers it the right way for the world, considering that driving is one of the most dangerous things we partake in regularly, that it should be demoted to just a hobby. But I have reservations about that too. I’m trying to stay (maybe out of delusion) hopeful that driving will still matter and be enjoyable.
I think tuning needs a readjustment in perception. We’ve removed one way to tune, power, and I guess it’s more difficult to get excited about suspension geometry or alignment or handling balance vs a big shiny Garrett turbo, but the fact is we’re still talking about boxes with four wheels at the bottom. Tuning is, and always has been, about how to make a car use those tyres to their full effect.
The GT-R, as impressive as it was, also had its detractors for being a computer on wheels. Car lovers have always disliked techy cars and longed for simpler driving experiences. I know people who still insist carbs are better. I don’t see why the Plaid couldn’t have made Porsche miserable in all the same ways the GT-R did.
> Car lovers have always disliked techy cars and longed for simpler driving experiences.
I consider myself a car enthusiast, but can't relate to this. I was always into cars for all the clever ways humanity made things on four wheels go, not the stuff that was associated with it.
Like, I still can't stand driving a regular automatic, but mainly due to how badly it translates my intent into motion. Well, except for CVTs, but they in turn are to me an inelegant and over complicated solution.
Unless you live near a drag strip I'd argue that the Plaid's one trick is wasted on public roads. 0-60 in 2 seconds is not even enjoyable for most people. But if it was, I'd like that joy to last more than 2 seconds (without losing my license).
A sports car is something you wake up early on a Sunday morning to drive to a technical mountain road for no other reason than to derive pleasure from the human-machine interaction. Which you can do at legal speeds. Plenty of sports car owners do also go out of their way to visit the track.
How many Plaid owners excitedly set their alarm for 5am so they can enjoy a twisty mountain road a few hours away?
In the enthusiast market we're seeing the opposite. Evs have made speed routine, but dull the driving experience part. 90's and 2000's sports cars with manuals are worth sometimes 100ks more than those with paddels, even though they are slower.
The gtr has been essentially the same platform since its release, when the competition has gotten extremely tight. Then there's nissan's issues, ceo getting arrested, money troubles, uninspiring lineup that mostly sells to fleets/rentals, thus leading to inability to invest in halo vehicles.
If the plaid was making cars like this obsolete why are we seeing insane demand for the 911?
If your entire concept of a fast car is one that accelerates really really fast from a stoplight every once in a while, Plaid is your ticket.
It does not replace cars like the R35 for people who like to drive, track, or modify cars though.
Absolutely. My brother in law has had a Model S then an R1T, and now a Cybertruck (that he plans to sell). The acceleration is fun as hell, when you do it. 100%.
Any of those three, thinking about cornering, handling, really driving, I have an RS 5, and that thing handles like it is on rails. Taking a corner too hard in his Model S and I was hanging on for dear life as I felt the control sliding away.
I own an EV and while the instant torque is fun, nothing will ever come close to the joys of driving a manual sports car.
> nothing will ever come close to the joys of driving a manual sports car.
"joy" basically means: natural aspiration, low weight, manual gearbox, rear-wheel drive, hydraulic (or unassisted) steering and no traction control or ESP
I recently got an 81 Vanagon, it's got all of that except hydraulic steering and low weight, but I only have the two front seats which helps with weight a bit, and it's probably close to a light truck weight, back when they made light trucks. It's a lot of fun. No power steering, no power windows, no power from the engine, but I get to stomp on the throttle all the time.
Later model years added all sorts of bells and whistles like water cooling, power steering, and signs of life from the engine, but who needs that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Type_2_(T3)
Huh.
Ah, that joy. Had it crossing the Atlas mountain in Morocco, in a 35 HP FWD car. Low weight and simplicity, that's the key. Yeah, that won't return any time soon.
At the border crossing, we shared the queue with two of the five teams (according to Wikipedia) participating in the first ever 4L Trophy. When I'm gone (well, when we're gone, me and my peers at the time), those memories will be gone, it's how it is.
That’s right! There’s a reason nearly every city has a club of gutted Miatas.
As a six speed NB owner, am hard pressed to disagree.
I haven't driven another car yet that focused so well on the things that make driving fun, while minimizing the downsides.
Agreed. We bought my wife an NC last year when the criteria was “cheap, petrol, naturally aspirated and Japanese”. The criteria was in response to my Land Rover (Discovery / LR4) which is none of those things and becoming a bore.
After stealing the MX-5 whenever I get the chance I now wish we could run two. That would make family trips troublesome though…
> That would make family trips troublesome though
100%. As someone who drove said NB for a 6-hour trip twice a week for a period, it isn't the best grand tourer. ;)
It did make my heart sing to dust angry jacked up trucks with 3x+ the displacement / power, but who obviously didn't understand power:weight ratio.
I prefer NA but I can have a lot of joy with a proper turbo or two, or a supercharger. There’s a big difference between a turbo used to pass emissions standards and one installed for fun
> rear-wheel drive
meh, I was never a fan of those.
I still remember the day I took an audi quattro (not mine, a car like that was way out of my league financially back then) for the first time up a mountain pass road near my home in the 80s.
What an effing rush that was.
Strongly agree for the rest of the list though and would add: "mechanical handbrake" to the list.
These days cars have ugly little electronic handbrakes with a LED on it, what a load of shite.
while i agree the only thing i’ll note here is the aforementioned GTR (R35) never came in manual.
It’s definitely quite a bit lighter than the Tesla at least.
I totally agree. But why? The Evs have brutal acceleration and reach higher average speeds.
We should feel some excitement, yet I don’t even bother to have a spirited drive in an EV. The super fast ones just make you feel nauseous.
I love cycling way more, but then every random dog is trying to eat me. So ICE rules!
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An added bonus is that money for the GTR doesn’t go to a nazi though.
retro computers are also obsolete but they still have considerable amount of supporters.
if you hate the process of driving then you are correct
That is not remotely true. Maybe in the specific case you want a drag racing car with minimal effort.
Sounds like pure cope, considering Tesla obsolescence of late + this being literally 2007 car