In the middle of Motor Trend Magazine’s annual Best Driver’s Car award testing, something interesting took place. The magazine coined it the “World’s Biggest Drag Race” as eleven of the industry’s most prestigious and highest performing cars lined up at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in El Toro, California. Ahead of the contenders were 1,320 feet of straight asphalt and who ever could cover the distance in the shortest time rolled away with something very important: ultimate bragging rights.
In the middle of a field riddled with record-breaking performance cars such as the $225,325 2012 Ferrari 458 Italia and the $198,600 2012 Audi R8 GT, it was the Japanese supercar killer that came out on top. With a standing quarter-mile time of 11.2 seconds at 121.8 mph, the 2012 Nissan GTR was the fastest, followed by the Ferrari which was .1 seconds behind. Blame for the win can be placed on Nissan’s all wheel drive system with flawless launch control and the 2012’s up in power to 530 horsepower and 448 lb-ft of torque.
At $89,950, the GTR is reasonable considering the competition included the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, Porsche 911 GT3 RS and Lexus LF-A. Brian Carolin, senior vice president for Sales and Marketing of Nissan North America said, “In all fairness, if we were running for pink slips, we would have had to bring at least two GT-Rs to match the cost of the competitors. We’ll settle for the title of baddest of the bad.”
Source: Nissan
