Nissan Announce Osaka GT-R Special Limited Edition
The Nissan GT-R is one of those cars that has become almost legendary. The feisty supercar has, arguably, changed the way the world perceives the overall value of Japanese supercars compared to their American, German or Italian counterparts.
The GT-R itself now has very little connecting it to the successful high performance version of the Skyline that Nissan named the Skyline GT-R from around 20 years ago. It’s essentially a different car, but it never hurts to keep an iconic name alive.
It’s always exciting to hear of a new special edition GT-R and Nissan has just announced a very limited edition model as a tribute to the company’s new brand ambassador, Grand Slam tennis star Naomi Osaka. Rated fifth in the world, Osaka has also come up with the car’s available colour schemes. Only 50 Osaka GT-R models will be made available and should you choose to seek one out, you will have the option of Midnight Opal, Meteor Flake Black Pearl or Brilliant White Pearl (purple, black, or white) for the exterior, with a choice of tan, cream or red for the interior. You can choose any combination/match of exterior and interior colours.
The new supercar is based on the luxury GT-R Premium Edition trim level, but actual changes apart from the colours are quite limited. A carbon rear spoiler is added and there is a golden number plaque in the engine bay and LED top rear lights. The engine though, remains the same as from the last GT-R 2017 update. But being disappointed at the engine not being tweaked is a bit pointless; the GT-R is no slouch at the best of times with around 562bhp to call on when needed.
The Osaka GT-R is basically another stopgap between the current GT-R version (R35) and the rumoured next-gen version (R36), though there are no hints from Nissan as to when this might happen. In supercar terms, I guess the GT-R is becoming a little long in the tooth, having first appeared as we know it today in 2007. Shirō Nakamura, Nissan’s Chief Creative Officer, suggested that the car’s design owed a little to the Japanese anime Gundam series – and this is possibly the key to the GT-R’s on-going success; it isn’t trying to be an American muscle car, nor is it trying to be a sleek-lined Italian designed thing of beauty. It is a Japanese supercar through and through – and if you want to get your hands on the Osaka GT-R, then Japan is where you will have to go, as Nissan do not plan to make the car available outside of the home market. They do drive on the left though if you’re still tempted.
Images: topgear.com
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