Page 8 - Fast Car (March 2020)

UP FRONT New Car News • Appreciating Depreciation • What’s On • Angry Man

GT-R50 IS A REAL-WORLD

CONCEPT CAR

The Nissan GT-R50 is one of those exhaust systems, as well as a recalibrated
cars that’s so outlandish, you almost gearbox and stronger rear diff. It’s also got
can’t believe it’s real. We had a good continuously-variable Bilstein dampers,
look around it when the covers were carbon-ceramic brakes and 21-inch carbon
pulled away at the Goodwood Festival ibre wheels. So the aesthetics of that
of Speed back in summer 2018, and the incredible half-spaceship, half-museum
details were just insane – a masterpiece exhibit bodywork may be designed to stun,
in aluminium and carbon ibre. It was like but this is no show pony. This is a hardcore
when manufacturers got a bit carried away 711bhp driver’s car. And we’re buying all
with the idea of building one-off specials the lottery tickets we can afford, because
for the Gran Turismo videogame series a we need one of these in our lives.
little while back, and we ended up with
the bonkers GT By Citroën that genuinely
looked like a lying saucer.
…but then in late-2019 it was announced
that the GT-R50 would be going into limited
production, and we realised that we really
must be living in some kind of acid-tinged
dreamworld. This is a car developed by
Nissan in conjunction with Italdesign, who
celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2018
– just 50 examples of the GT-R50 will be
built (which explains the name, of course),
and their beauty is more than skin-deep.
Naturally you’re going to end up with a
pretty daft performance car anyway if you
use the GT-R as a starting point, but this
one amps things up with a NISMO-spec
engine that’s running GT3 turbos, forged
pistons, rods and crank, new intake and

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