Spec-v

[ras1983]

OK this is just a link the the article on the SAU home page, http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/Co...ns-t247201.html

If you notice the asking price is more than TWICE that of the standard GTR. Carbon brakes aside; do the rest of the modifications justify the massive price increase?

I guess I was expecting a little bit more than what Nissan has delivered - especially in the power increase (or the lack thereof).

What do you guys think?

[Snowman]

The big question (for the race guys) that hasn't been answerd yet is the weight. How much lighter have they made it?

As for the price - well if the stories are true that they aren't making any $$$ out of the standard GT-R maybe they see this as a chance to get some of it back.

[ras1983]

Well there must be something not included in that article because the price premium being asked must be for something. Maybe the car as a package will be much better than the standard car (i.e. what a GT3 is to a base 911). The article mentions a lot of carbon fibre equipment AND the removal of the back seat among other things.

[Beer Baron]

yeah I don't know if I'd buy one at 1.6mil yen. the base GTR at 8 mil is excellent value. no doubt a spec v at 16mil is still good value, but hard to swallow when you know a base model costs half as much.

but consider that to upgrade your base R35 with wheels would cost about 3 mil.

new seats, maybe 1mil

new suspension maybe 1 mil from many places

ecu tuning ok maybe 100,000

all the carbon bits, got to be at least 500,000

plus the other bits maybe 1 mil.

so we are up around 6 mil or so in parts. and we have only got an upgraded steel brake set-up, not the carbon brakes like the spec V, and we will have knackered our warranty, obviously the spec V comes with those bits standard, plus obviously the spec V will have better resale than a tuned base model. so it suddenly doesn't look like bad value. remember all tuning parts for the R35 cost about 5 times what comparable bits cost for older tunable japanese sports cars. so in that sense the extra 8mil seems a bit more reasonable.

[LedZepLen]

Just like every manufactures track version (besides Viper ACR, Vette zr1, and Mustang 427r Track Pack) they are never offered at a reasonable price for what they are because if you dont want to pay for it someone else will. Many Spec V, GT3 RS, Superlegera, Scuderia, S7, gt500 KR and everything else in that general group will either be owned by hardcore racing teams and shops who want the best platform to build a car allong with the glorious name attached. Or by someone with a hell of allot of money who wants a unique car to beat the living sh1t out of on the track. Or by someone who will keep the plastic and warning/instuction tags on it, keep the value high and show off to friends in their hermetically scealed garage.

To us, all we see is a car that has more then doubled in price that we could build better. Look at Skyline era parts and this cars current list of aftermarket. This car wont sell because of a 2 sec improvement. If Nissan put Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tires like Chevy and Porche do on their street/track cars along with carbon ceramic brake pads and a 30% increase in boost pressure Nissan would shave a bit more then 2 seconds before resorting to carbon fibre parts that are abviously not doing much more then give the new owner something to talk about. Or they are doing allot and Nissan and Best Motoring did lap times faster then they should have posted for the stock model which Porche seems to be bitching about, because either Porches test driver can't drive or GTR's were tweaked. Just a thought.

But to be honest, you do pay for the performance offered by Nissan. Just now you actually pay for the performance where before it was a bargin if you could get your hands on one. We had one in my town that i was harassing the dealership to get one in and they got a Black Edition that was origionally listed for $80,000. They had 3 people who put deposits on the car in the 4 months before it arrived: $25,000, $30,000 and $50,000. When it was all said and done it sold for $130,000 and luckily to someone in town. I was lucky enough to sit in it.

Bottom line, theirs allot of hype and their is no reason except demand to jack the price. I mean, i wanna move to Australia and i'm blown away seeing mint condition early 2000 v spec, vspec 2, NUR, m spec r34's going for 60,000-100,000. If someone who knows nothing about skylines looks at these numbers they think people are crazy when a 2001 GTR with a few mods is going for $10,000 less then a 09' GTR is listed for (yet never sells for list).

Lets all beg nissan to make a manly version of both. This being the EVO model i've been hearing about thats gonna have a clutched manual gear box. This should be the one worth waiting for, this will be the one people will build dog boxes for and shops will want as long term investments with real potential. Spec V is neat, but give us DRIVERS something to dream about and not a racing version with an auto that outweighs a damn Mustang. I guess they need to do more show then go mods to please the American market.