The legend is real. The 2009 Nissan GT-R, the car known to many as the Nissan Skyline in Japan, can run as fast as the fastest Porsche. It handles as well as the most agile Lamborghini. It does all of those things at a relative fraction of the cost of its putative betters. It is a performance car supreme.
And it is frustration of the most excruciating sort.
For me, the only thing that came close to my time in the GT-R Premium edition was my last date with Gloria A.
We were Catholic high school students in New Orleans. She attended the girls’ school, St. Mary’s Academy. I went to the school for boys, St. Augustine.
To say that I had a thing for Gloria is to put it mildly. In moments of grand self-delusion, I thought she had the same feelings for me.
We got together at a St. Mary’s school dance. It was a good date — a wonderful evening that I thought would get even better.
Gloria suggested that we step outside of the dance hall. She wanted to talk about “something important.” I was aching with anticipation, primed to say “yes” to her unasked question. And then she spoke: “I’m going to the convent.”
Everything after that was a blur. I think I took her home. I’m not sure. All I remember is a tremendous feeling of loss, of unfulfilled potential. I drowned in a sea of frustration and disappointment.
That feeling came back to me sitting in the Nissan GT-R. There was so much potential — 480 horsepower available for the asking, 430 foot-pounds of torque and an all-wheel-drive system with rear-wheel-drive bias, the way all-wheel-drive should be in a premium sports car.
Everything about the GT-R spoke to power and speed. What an abject waste! Where could I exploit that power? Where could I enjoy the thrill of that speed?
The GT-R is a capable performer on the racetrack, where many of my peers in automotive journalism experienced its considerable prowess. But I only had the car for a few days — in the middle of a workweek at that. There was no time to go to a track. How often could a person rooted in the real world go to a track anyway?
Still, I found a few abandoned strips and had a bit of fun. What a splendid driving machine! But the experience reminded me of dancing with Gloria before being told she was going to the convent. It was as good as it gets . . . with so much good left un-gotten.
And there was this — Courtroom 1-D in the Fairfax General District Court. I had gone there with Ria Manglapus, my associate in vehicle evaluations, on the matter of a speeding ticket — Ria’s ticket, her first ever in 32 years of driving. She got that one in another sports car, the Infiniti G37, a good runner, but a decidedly lesser being in comparison with the GT-R. It did not matter.
There is something about sitting in traffic court, watching justice dispensed with efficient, brutal impartiality, that takes the joy out of driving a car such as the Nissan GT-R. In stripping it of that joy, the judicial system renders the car a utilitarian thing, turns its hyperbolic road performance into little more than a cipher.
It occurred to me while sitting in Courtroom 1-D that the judge just doesn’t care. The police handing out the speeding tickets don’t care. The commonwealth attorney prosecuting traffic violations doesn’t care.
The Nissan GT-R can move from 0 to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds. It can outpace the super-fast Porsche 911/Type 997. It can outrun the Corvette Z06. But if you are driving it on public roads in Fairfax County, District Judge Penney S. Azcarate is unimpressed. Go over the limit. She’ll throw the book at you.
“I don’t care what car you are driving,” she recently told an errant motorist in a court hearing. “Slow down!”
There was something about the way she said that, the frightening, final authority of it, that robbed me of affection for cars such as the Nissan GT-R. They are nice to play with on racetracks. But there’s a bit of the last dance about them — for most of us, little chance of ever developing a meaningful relationship.
