Welcome to Critic's Notebook, a quick car review consisting of impressions and marginalia regarding whatever The Drive writers happen to be driving. Today's edition: the 2018 Nissan GT-R Premium.

The 2018 Nissan GT-R Premium, By the Numbers:

Base Price (Price as Tested): $112,185 ($119,885)

$112,185 ($119,885) Powertrain: 3.8-liter twin-turbo V6, 565 horsepower, 467 pound-feet of torque; six-speed dual-clutch transmission; all-wheel-drive

3.8-liter twin-turbo V6, 565 horsepower, 467 pound-feet of torque; six-speed dual-clutch transmission; all-wheel-drive EPA Fuel Economy: 16 mpg city / 22 mpg highway

16 mpg city / 22 mpg highway 0-60 MPH: Call it 2.9 seconds, based on tests of previous versions

Call it 2.9 seconds, based on tests of previous versions Coefficient of drag: 0.26, or just as slippery as BMW's eco-conscious plug-in hybrid speedster, the i8

0.26, or just as slippery as BMW's eco-conscious plug-in hybrid speedster, the i8 Quick Take: Now in the twilight years of its sixth generation, Nissan's high-performance halo car is still subjectively impressive—but objectively, it's no longer as astounding as it was earlier in life.

One Big Question: Is it time for the R35 GT-R to die?

The Nissan GT-R may be known by the nickname Godzilla, but these days, it feels more like the hero battle-suit from Pacific Rim, Gipsy Danger: a potent-yet-aging mechanical power. In the movie, of course, Gipsy manages to pull through and save the world, holding its own against monsters the size of battleships and jumbo jets long enough to drop a nuke through an interdimensional portal at the bottom of the ocean and wipe out the alien invaders. (It's an odd movie to summarize.)

But in the real world, where the laws of narrative storytelling don't apply in the same way, it's harder to make a case for choosing the R35 GT-R over some of its competitors. When it launched in 2008, it was groundbreaking, everything the world demanded from a new car destined to carry on the GT-R legacy—capable of outrunning cars that cost thrice the price both on the straights and in the turns, while making heads whip around as onlookers tried to catch a glimpse of its anime-universe styling unlike anything else on sale. You could love the R35 GT-R, you could hate the R35 GT-R—but either way, you had to respect it.

More than a decade after it dropped on the scene, thought, the rest of the world seems to have outpaced the R35. Sure, there's been the occasional souped-up or kitted-out version designed to keep the car fresh and relevant—the NISMO GT-R, the SpecV. But in an era when McLaren can squeeze a 2.5-second 0-60 run and a 9.7-second, 141-mph quarter-mile run out of a rear-wheel-drive street car and BMW builds a two-ton luxury sedan that can blitz from a stop to a mile per minute in less than three seconds, the regular ol' GT-R doesn't seem nearly as impressive as its wild styling makes it out to be.