Yeah another sensational headline. Most of you will probably already know the new GTR is pretty big.

Here’s a photo to help. Pretty wide across the hips isn’t she, up there with the Ferraris etc. she was aimed at to beat. 190cm wide. Problem is for most of the Japanese market that’s too wide. To buy a car here you have to have a carparking space by law. The majority of people in the major citys such as Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe live in apartment buildings with mechanical lift style carparks to save space. A lot of these have a max permissible width of 180cm. Some like mine have 185cm. If it’s 1mm over you can’t register the car and therefore can’t buy it.

There are a lot of guys here who have bought every GTR since the 32 in 1989. It’s almost religious. They have been waiting for the 35 for a few years now only to discover they won’t be able to buy the thing. I think these traditional owners are quite pissed off at Nissan. Surely they could have shaved 5cm off it? However I think with this GTR Nissan was not going after the local market but had it’s eyes firmly fixed on the USA, Europe and Australia and stuff the GTR true believers. Bit ironic when Nissan’s CM plug for the car is “the Legend is Real”. Yeah real if you have a wide carpark. Auto Salon in Osaka is next month so I will have a chance to gauge the reaction of some of the major tuning shops and get their thoughts.