Remember when the Nissan GT-R was considered a budget super car? Yeah, not anymore. The 2013 Nissan GT-R's price has ballooned to $96,820 for the base GT-R Premium model and $106,320 for the Black Edition. That's a 35% inflation in price since this model of the car first went on sale for $69,850 back in July 2008. Godzilla's now got a price to match its girth.
Any discussion of pricing with the GT-R comes with the gigantic caveat that, no matter how much it costs, it's damn fast. Using the metric of Nürburgring lap times it is — to borrow a line from A.J. Liebling — faster than anything cheaper than it, and cheaper than anything faster than it.
It was a remarkable value when it debuted. Grenaded transmissions aside, it would pull a 0-to-60 mph run in the mid 3.0-second range with a 193 mph top speed. Around the 'Ring it was faster than a Porsche 911 Turbo and roughly half the price.
Since then the performance and power has only gotten better. For the 2013 model year the GT-R now puts out 545 horsepower (up from 485 horsepower at launch and 530 horsepower last year) and hits 60 mph in just 2.7 seconds from a dead stop.
But the gap is narrowing. When the GT-R launched the Premium model (which is now the de facto base model) the MSRP was just $71,900. Few were likely to get that price at the dealer, but it's the only fair way to compare costs from year-to-year.
Before, the price difference between a Corvette ZR1 was around $30,000. Now the $111,600 ZR1 is only $5,000 more expensive than the comparable Black Edition GT-R (and the ZR1 is faster around the 'Ring). And the completely redesigned 2012 Porsche 911 is actually cheaper, with a base price of $82,100.
Few cars have ever gone up so much in price during a single generation, which leaves prospective buyers to wonder if the new GT-R is now too expensive or merely as expensive as it should have been all along. Only now Nissan's pocketing the profits rather than the dealerships.