From the December 1995 Issue of Car and Driver

Saturday, 9 a.m., Hakone, Japan: After two days of rounding up test cars beneath gray skies, it's our first sunny day. We stop at a Cosmo service station for a fill-up and a carwash. In contrast to the good ol’ U.S., here stations are stocked with cheerful, eager-to-please attendants who apparently have not heard the term "chump change."

The Supra Turbo is parked in the bay of a "Lugar Big Top," a car-washing superstructure that moves on rails back and forth over the parked car. The Big Top completes its motion to the rear of the Supra, then stops abruptly. The control-panel lights blink urgently: the rear brush is stuck behind the Supra's wild rear wing, a $500 option.

One smiling attendant, 20-year-old Miss Motoko Yoshikawa, marches confidently over to the control panel, ponders it for a moment, and presses a button. The Big Top lurches forward and rips off the Supra's rear wing with a sickening crackling noise, that same sound you remember as a kid perching on a tree limb just before it collapsed.

View Photos JEFFREY DWORIN

This causes pandemonium at the station. Attendants and the manager run over, yelling and gesticulating wildly. Yoshikawa-san has crouched on the ground, head in her hands, and is weeping.

The good news is it wasn't the Nissan Skyline GT-R, the subject of this test. Skylines are a line of sporty coupes and sedans sold only in Japan and Australia. That, in itself, is not a good enough reason to go to Japan to test one. The 1995 GT-R version's turbocharged 2.6-liter in-line six, its four-wheel-drive, its considerable racing history, and the fact that it is a new version of Nissan's most sophisticated performance car constitute considerably better reasons. To put the GT-R in proper context, we rounded up two standards we know well—a Toyota Supra Turbo and a Corvette.

The predecessor to this car appeared in 1989, the year Nissan cooked up the first twin-turbo and intercooled 4wd Skyline for Group A and N track racing. Enthusiasts around the world salivated over its technology, as did we when we test-drove a GT-R that had been sneaked into the U.S. and tweaked to about 350 horsepower. We called it "so good, it's scary."

View Photos JEFFREY DWORIN

The new GT-R appeared in January. It comes in three forms: standard GT-R; the GT-R V-Spec you see here, which has a more advanced driveline; and a racing version with a revised suspension, called the N1.

In any form, the new GT-R is technically peerless. For motivation, twin ceramic turbochargers with an intercooler feed a 2.6-liter six with 12.0 psi of boost. The claimed 276 hp (at 6800 rpm) bumps up against the Japanese automakers' voluntary power ceiling (Nissan insiders say the GT-R's actual figure is more like 311 hp). At 4400 rpm, there's 271 pound-feet of torque. Redline is a sizzling 8000 rpm.

A five-speed manual feeds the GT-R's four-wheel drive via a center differential sporting an electronically controlled multiplate clutch. This "ATTESA E-TS" system sends 100 percent of the torque to the rear wheels until a wheel sensor detects slip—then it meters up to 50 percent of the torque to the front. Our V-Spec GT-R had yet another electronically controlled clutch, called A-LSD, which serves as a separate limited-slip differential for the rear wheels. The intent of this complexity is to distribute just the right amount of torque to each wheel to provide neutral handling, not simply maximum full-time traction.

View Photos JEFFREY DWORIN

Massive 245/45ZR-17 Bridgestone Expedias on alloy wheels are controlled by unequal-length control arms up front, with control arms and links in the rear on their own sub-frame. The final piece of the puzzle is Nissan's electronically controlled Super HICAS rear-wheel steering, which now receives information from a new yaw sensor installed in the trunk.

Sunday, 11 a.m., Hakone: We're at a crowded snack bar at an intersection of the Ashi‑no-ko Skyline, a meticulously maintained collection of curves, sweepers, and switchbacks making up a scenic road surrounding Hakone's Lake Ashi. The traditional Japanese breakfast looks just like last night's dinner; Pat Bedard once described it as "a do-it-yourself fish assembly kit." It just hasn't hit the spot, so we're now furtively wolfing down food we recognize—coffee, Oreos, and Pocky-Sticks, which are Japanese junk food in the form of little chocolate-coated pretzels.

In the parking lot are hundreds of sport motorcycles—all the Japanese marques, with dozens of Ducatis, BMWs, and new Triumphs mixed in. Our correspondent, Yasushi Ishiwatari, calls their riders, none of whom look older than 18, "mountain road boys." They wear brightly colored leathers tattooed with mangled English. An example is a jacket with a big red cross and the words:

Yellow Corn

Sledgehammer

Highway the Third

A cross on a biker jacket seems like good insurance, considering the treacherous roads. The lanes are narrow, passing zones plentiful, and warning signs few. But most spooky are the curves, which are lined with sharp-edged, eight-inch-deep concrete drainage ditches, ready to catch a wheel or rip out a suspension. The mountain road boys aren't known for reckless driving, but then again the ambulances around here are busy around the clock on weekends.

Specifications VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, four-wheel-drive, 4-passenger, 2-door sedan

PRICE AS TESTED (Japan): $55,200 (base price: $54,600)

ENGINE TYPE: DOHC 24-valve twin-turbocharged and intercooled inline-6, iron block and aluminum head, port fuel injection

Displacement: 157 cu in, 2569 cc

Power: 276 hp @ 6800 rpm

Torque: 271 lb-ft @ 4400 rpm

TRANSMISSION: 5-speed manual

DIMENSIONS:

Wheelbase: 107.1 in

Length: 184.1 in

Width: 70.1 in Height: 53.5 in

Curb weight: 3574 lb

C/D TEST RESULTS:

Zero to 60 mph: 5.3 sec

Zero to 100 mph: 12.9 sec

Zero to 110 mph: 16.1 sec

Street start, 5-60 mph: 6.0 sec

Top gear, 30-50 mph: 11.8 sec

Top gear, 50-70 mph: 9.1 sec

Standing ¼-mile: 14.0 sec @ 104 mph

Top speed (governor limited): 113 mph

Braking, 70-0 mph: 159 ft

Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.94 g FUEL ECONOMY:

Japanese city cycle: 19 mpg

C/D observed: 11 mpg

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