There are two questions in life you always answer yes to. First, if someone asks if you are a God, say yes. Second, if the folks at Nissan offer you one of the seven U.S.-spec 2009 Nissan GT-R pre-production testers in the US and give you carte blanche to drive it wherever and however so long as you get it to Reno in one piece, give a similar response. That's just what Inside Line did, covering 2,000 miles of highways, byways, racetrack, dry lake beds and drag strips. Below we take you behind the scenes of this epic journey, with some photos and details too-hot-for-Edmunds from IL's Senior Editor Ed Hellwig — the co-driver of the tri-state adventure.
Starting in Santa Monica
Even though they'd had the car only for a few hours of photography, people already took notice of Godzilla. "When we took it out for the first shoot, everybody asked the same thing: Is that the new Skyline? It was a question that we heard endlessly throughout the trip. Always Skyline, rarely GT-R." [0 miles]
Escape from L.A.
Remember everyone thinking about the GT-R as a balanced sports car that could compete with the Corvette as an on-track, off-track vehicle. Not so much. "We weren't kidding about the ride quality of the GT-R coming out of L.A. It's brutal on broken concrete. It was around that time that we noticed that the suspension adjustment switch only spells out "Comf". That's pretty much accurate, as it's never actually "comfortable". [47 miles]
Donuts at El Mirage
What would you do with a currently rare, $70,000 sports car? Spin the crap out of it on a silt-covered lake. Hell yeah. This is what happens when automakers aren't clear with their stipulations. "El Mirage is a trip. You basically just pull off the highway (granted, the highway out of Palmdale), head down an access road and drive right onto the dry lake at which point you can pretty much go as fast you want. The hard part is making sure you don't run into somebody else doing the same thing which isn't easy between the dust and the sun. Oh, and we also noted several Predator drones buzzing over our heads as we did donuts in the dirt (Edwards AFB is just up the road). I suppose we could say that we know what terrorists in Afghanistan feel like, but they're dead before ever seeing the Predators." [132 miles]
CHP On I-5
Those with stealth dreams of eluding cops in your new GT-R better think again. As stealthy-looking as the GT-R is, it's not going to outrun radar. At least not in white. That being said, flash the auto-journalist card and maybe you'll catch a break. [444 miles]
Sacramento Raceway
Show up to your local strip with a new car, especially a Japanese car (at least in certain areas) and be prepared to get the business from guys jockeying Vettes and Stangs. Run an 11-second 1/4-mile and be prepared to change some minds. "As soon as we pulled into the starting lanes at Sacramento Raceway, the car was surrounded. Some guys were dismissing it, but most were aware of its capabilities. Again it was always, "check out the new Skyline". This was the first place people actually said, "Hey, I've been following you on the blog." When it finally ran an 11.80, all the doubters were silenced. Traction on the starting box was hard to come by, so the numbers were a little slower that usual. [706 miles]
Bonneville Salt Water Flats
The flats were covered with a few inches of salty water when the Edmunds duo arrived. They thought it best not to sink the car in salt water and instead launched it up and down the access roads. We say, if life hands you salt water, make GT-R soup. A difference of opinion, we guess. "You have to see Bonneville to believe it. The access road is a raised two lane that seems a mile long. And then it just ends." [989 miles]
Sandy City Black & Whites
Being good sports, the crew stopped off to meet readers along the way. If you've got a high performance vehicle, meeting cops isn't a bad idea as it gives you the opportunity to burn rubber in parking lots with impunity. Just don't tase me, bro. "Eric, the Sandy City cop we met just outside Salt Lake City, was fun to hang with. He was so psyched to see the GT-R and when we started poking around his patrol vehicles he didn't mind a bit. He even offered to use his tazer on one of us. We weren't that curious. Launching the car in the police department parking lot was fun too." [1,150 miles]
A Desert Mirage
It would be criminal to have command of a GT-R and not take it to a track at least once. Conveniently, there's a fairly new park in the foothills outside of Salt Lake City. "Miller Motorsports Park really is unbelievable. Everything about the place is first class. The pit lane at the go kart track is nicer than the main paddock of most tracks. I think the only time we felt bad about not washing the GT-R was when we pulled into one of the main garages as they're spotless from top to bottom. Everybody there was nicer than they needed to be. We didn't want to leave." [Hot Laps]
Not Quite Home Yet
Seriously, the cops get on the GT-R like Elliot Spitzer on some expensive prostitutes. Maybe buyers of this car should stick to abandoned salt flats. "We were in the middle of nowhere when the guy came over a hill right in front of us. When he came up to the car he asked what it was and why it had manufacturer plates. At that point we figured we were getting written up, but when he came back he let us off. Not really sure why, but he was cool the whole time about it." [1,496 miles]
There's the inside line on Inside Line's trip. For more, including video and detailed information the GT-R head over to their site for the full trip. [Nissan GT-R Road Trip]