What can $100K buy these days? Such a sum purchases a lot less than it used to, sure, but it can still manage to land a pretty amazing automobile if you know where to look. Now, your nearby Nissan dealer wouldn’t likely be the first place you’d think of to land a bit of exotica. But certain select Nissan Emporiums do indeed have a wicked-fast coupe called the GT-R, and it is a serious, pavement-lighting G-teaser of an automobile. The Black Edition I was lucky enough to sample was that curious mix of “The door sounds like an economy car when you shut it, and yet it costs what?” and, “Oh my God, my internal organs have been shifted and I was just going down the driveway.” It is your basic user-friendly exotic, and very, very entertaining. 

An All-Wheel-Drive coupe like this is so crammed full of complex, state-of-the-art components that it would take a very long time to catalog all the goodies. But I’ll try to hit the key points, such as (obviously) the drivetrain starting with the 3.8-liter V6 engine. This unit is assembled in a clean room (like all serious race shops built their mills) and is blessed with twin turbochargers, and through its highly polished, hyper-engineered internal architecture generates 545 horsepower. This is mated to a rear-mounted transaxle (Nissan calls the balanced architecture Premium Midship) that uses dual-clutch automatic technology with 6 speeds and paddle shifters for manual operation. This in turn goes through a ATTESA E-TS All-Wheel Drive system (also rear mounted) that can vary torque from 100% rear drive to a 50:50 mix front-to-back. There is more computer hardware than NASA used to have, so suffice it to say Nissan’s goal of making this car not only worthy of true Supercar status but a manageable Hulk that even non-expert drivers can enjoy safely is satisfied through very sophisticated stability software. 

And this is a welcome thing, for this is a nasty-fast machine that does inspire one to do potentially mischievous things. The GT-R launches off the line with the urgency of an Olympic sprinter, and in less-than-ideal conditions was able to catapult me to 60 MPH in around 4 seconds. The intake and exhaust orations are the stuff of F1 dreams, yet never excessively booming to get annoying over time during steady-state droning. The steel/aluminum/carbon fiber body shrouds a track-serious suspension (adjustable of course-but even the comfort setting is pretty stiff) and huge monobloc Brembo brakes handle the woah with sufficient urgency. Steering feedback manages to do the right mix of letting the road surface communicate without excessive bump-steer on rougher stretches. The transmission does its direct engagement thing well, and shifts cleanly in manual mode although it can be occasionally abrupt when on full auto at slow speeds. 

The interior is cozy but forms a wonderfully supportive cockpit to conduct the business of driving, with outstanding Recaro leather buckets that should be able to adjust to a broad variety of physiques and fit mine perfectly. You strap into a focused cruise missile like this and become a part of the hardware, and it helps tie you to the chassis like only the best road-going machines can do. It’s stiff, some of the switchgear looks like it was lifted off a Sentra, and it costs a fortune. But the things that make an ultra-high-performance Supercar a lusty commodity are all in full measure, and it ultimately makes for a very unique ride. Others may be sexier, but Nissan deserves credit for getting the bottom line (getting around the paved surface with wicked despatch) right on the money.