We could start counting camshafts.

 

I'd agree with that, if that's what happens.

 

Actually, I believe the "stated" goal was to exceed the 911 turbo in every performance category, not just "run with it" and do so for roughly half the price; at least that’s what has been pretty consistently reported...whether the GT-R will do so we'll just have to wait and see.

 

Then the assertion still stands. Outrunning the 911 gets the GTR into second, or third if you count the Viper, from a performance standpoint at that price point.

However, 4000 lbs. + 500hp ain't gonna get the job done relative to the rest of the competition in the $70,000 neighborhood as they also advance, and will make the car a target for the Z51, not the Z06... so I'd hope the bar was set higher than that if Nissan is looking to compete at that price point.

 

Yeah, well your assertion and $3.50 will get you a cup of coffer at Starbucks but otherwise what's the point?

I’m not saying a performance comparison between high performance cars is inappropriate - it’s nice to know how one car stacks up against another (although I again say comparing a car that doesn’t exist yet to one that does is not very meaningful since the comparisons are all based on nothing but assumptions). At any rate, I dare say such comparisons are of much more importance to the Corvette aficionados than to Nissan (or Porsche for that matter).

I do sometimes wonder, however, why those who most frequently extort the “It can’t beat a Corvette” mantra so often don’t own a Corvette??? Sort of makes you want to go "Hummmmmmmmmm...."

 

There are people who own Porsches and Corvettes solely for status.

Nissan obviously doesn't have that type of panache, so I'm at a loss as to why anyone would throw money down on a Nissan for any reason other than it's ability to outperform the competition.

And Nissan has never been able to offer a significant threat to Corvette in any case.

Remember the the 280Z and 300ZX?

Having learned the lesson above, with the 350Z Nissan didn't even try.



Oh, simple...

At the time of certain purchase decisions, aspects of life may not be appropriate to shell out $45,000-$75,000 on a two seater.


Why does the car command that type of respect?

It is unarguably the the strongest engineering statement any major manufacturer has ever made in the sports car field. While there are other cars that have exceeded it in performance for short periods of time, it has never really been by much (enough to matter in the eyes of buyers, that is...), and Corvette has owned the price/performance comparisions for decades now... recently exceeding cars at twice it's price in performance (the ZR1 did the same thing during it's time).

The list of victims who have attempted to unseat it as the #1 sportscar in North America, is long and illustrious:

Posrche (multiple times), Ford, Dodge, Toyota, Nissan, Ferrari (various lower-cost models), Mazda, etc...

Every single one of them has been knocked into oblivion or irrelevance, or is on the way to being so.

It is a truly American car. Engineered here, built here, with an American audience in mind, and something Americans can be proud of. The Ford GT, for all it's lumps, was another car along the same lines.

 

I think someone already mentioned this... but the 911 is generally an easier car to drive quickly than the Corvette. It's easier to manage at the limits.

Very few of us are skilled enough drivers to push either car to those limits, but if what I've read in magazines is true, more of us could get closer with the 911 than with the Corvette.

So what I really want to know about the new GTR is this: how easy is it to drive? Will I be able to get closer to a professionally-driven Z06's lap time in a Z06 or in a GTR?

 

The "Z" has never been about "unseating" the Corvette whether that be now or 30 years ago and if you truly think that's what the Z is about then you, frankly, don't understand it at all. Likewise, the assumption made that the GT-R is intended to do so.

I'm not taking anything away from the Corvette, it is what it is and what it is, is remarkable, but making assumptions about a car not yet produced, then comparing it to the Z06 and declaring the Z06 the winner is beyond pointless.

 

I started a somewhat similar thread earlier this year. There's a few more comments and pictures in it.

http://web.camaross.com/forums/showt...ht=Skyline+GTR

 

Oh, that most assuredly was the intent of the 300ZX. It failed and then was killed.

Nissan, having learned that lesson, then brought out the 350Z years later, and stayed very much away from being viewed as a Corvette competitor. No shame there, everybody else who's tried has failed also.


Oh, I would think that it is a fair thing to say that a 3800-4000lbs. with 500hp will be uncompetitive with the Z06 at a $70,000 price point, and will face a stiff challenge from the Z51 if it can be brought in at the $45,000-$55,000 price point.

Now, if any of the above information is wrong about the GTR, well then that would change the case.

So...

What in the above is wrong?

We've got some decent information on a preliminary basis that the car will come in somewhere north of 3700 lbs., will be AWD, may include AWS and will have something in the neighborhood of 450-525hp... much of that straight from you.

We know what a Z06 can do when compared to a 911 Turbo, and that a Z51 will beat a GT500 in every reasonable measure of performance.

All of the above is simply data, or a well founded guess. If those guesses are incorrect, meaning that the assumed data must be flawed, then please tell me where.

Now, you may make the claim that there are other reasons to buy a car, and there are, but the fact of the matter is that any car at a $45,000-$85,000 price point that claims to be a performance 2-seater or 2+2 is going to be staring down the barrel of a certain machine with crossed flags on the nose of it.

The historical facts concerning the inability of anyone to compete with Corvette are simply what they are - facts in evidence. The competitors are either dead and buried, on their way to being so, or struggling to catch up now.

 

PacerX has a PhD (Player Hater Degree) when it comes to foreign vehicles.

I dont think I've ever seen him compliment one, ever.

 

Yup... I think I've seen him 'concede' some compliments when other people make them and he doesn't specifically bash them - but his concessions are often backhanded at that.

He'd be a much more valuable asset to this forum with his engineering experience if we could believe what he said didn't have some sort of motive or bias-driven ego driving it all.

 

I always really liked MGB's... Ferrari and Lambo cannot be denied if cost is no object... Audi makes some really nice luxury cars, and I would prefer them to Mercedes and BMW... Jags have always been cool... Rolls Royce... well... they're Rolls Royce. The original Mini was a neat car.

Now, do I hate foreign cars?

Yes. I hate them.

I hate the idea that people actually believe that those of us in this industry are incapable of competing with the Japanese. I hate the idea that somehow, if you build it here, it's the same thing as an American car - it's not, the parts content on a dollar basis is vastly skewed and at the end of the day the most important question is "where does the money go?". I hate the idea that companies underwritten by their governments get a free hand in competing here against American companies that can't even seem to get their president to acknowledge they exist.

My greatest hate of all? Disinformation. If you want to argue about "desireability", I'm not going to resist those points much, if at all. It's not part of my programming. If, however, you are going to stay to objective means to make an argument - then I think the data pretty well speaks for itself.




I emptied out yet another parts manufacturer here in Michigan who went out of business this week. Lots of folks out of a job, machinery sold at a fire sale, lives in turmoil. In large part it was due to mismanagement - the owner was a dipsh!t.
But it still flat-out sucks for those people.



150 jobs are on the line right now in one of our plants, and I'll have the pleasure of doing the transition should it close. Which sucks.

So, while many would have you believe that it's the same whomever you buy a car from, it isn't.

 

I don’t suppose you would want to show me any internal Nissan documents to support your assumption would you?

Your assumption is your assumption and assumptions are like; well, you know what they are like and everybody has one; sometimes two.


What is “wrong” is that no one (no one outside of the team working on the car and even they don’t really know yet) knows how much the GT-R will weigh, or how much horsepower it will have or how much torque at what RPM it will have or how efficient the driveline will be in delivering that HP/Torque to the wheels will be or what kind of numbers it will pull in g force or how it will “feel” on the track or virtually anything else about the car - we are just back to assumptions again.

Actually, the only article I've seen so far is a headline from a foreign language article...perhaps it woudl be prudent to have several head to head comparisons by several testing groups with the results (hopefully) written in English before we start throwing around absolutes about the 911 Turbo Vs Z06 debate.

At any event, you can extol the virtues of the Z06 all day long and make assumptions all day long and it's still pointless.

 

Fixed that for you.

Otherwise, thank you! I concur.