People often forget this, but the original Nissan GT-R wasn’t just a giant-killer: it was a hell of a bargain. When the car launched in 2008 (yes, it’s been on the market almost a decade now!) with a base price of $69,850, it could shame vastly more expensive cars in a way that made a Corvette look like a Cavalier. Over the years it’s gotten a lot more expensive, never more so than with the new GT-R Nismo.
Nissan has unveiled the pricing of the heavily updated top of the range GT-R Nismo, and it now comes in at a staggering $176,585. That’s more expensive than an Audi R8 and within firing distance of a McLaren 570S. It’s also about $25,000 more than the last GT-R Nismo was.
Now before you jump into the comments with “WELL BUT” (even though I know you will anyway, you goons) let’s be sure to qualify a few things. It’s true that Nissan has added a ton of features and power to the car over the years, and that it’s faster and nicer than ever. It’s also true that my headline is comparing a new top model GT-R Nismo to the old base model, and those cars are quite different. The GT-R Nismo these days gets 600 horsepower from its venerable 3.8-liter twin-turbo V6.
But even a base GT-R these days starts at about $110,000. What was once a supercar slayer is now, well, just a supercar. Check out this chart we made in 2012 to track how much the car increased in price from its launch to then. It keeps on skyrocketing!
Hey, I get it. Performance doesn’t come cheap. And the GT-R is finally outfitted to at least feel more like a luxury car worthy of its performance. But with the next GT-R rumored to be a hybrid hypercar with tech derived from Le Mans racing, it’s easy to see it flying past the $200,000 mark eventually.
At what point is this thing no longer a bargain?