Drag test: Porsche 911 Turbo S v Nissan GT-R

With the flick of two switches – traction control off, powertrain amplified – the Nissan GT-R is battle-ready.

It's time for straight-line combat.

One foot on the gas, one on the brake (both pinned) and the legendary 419kW twin-turbo V6 whips to around 4000rpm in readiness.

I glance at the Porsche 911 Turbo S sitting in the drag lane next to me, and hear more of an enraged mechanical whirr than a war cry.

It matters not. The flag drops and this acceleration battle-royale is on like Donkey Kong!

Engine blaring and the all-wheel drive, 1717kg Nissan squirms off the line, its rear-end losing traction momentarily.

In less than a hundredth of a second, the car has calculated the best way to blast forward and the back of my head is slammed into the seat cushion with a brutality that'd make Jean-Claude Van Damme's signature nut-cracker snap kick combo feel lame.

With a tendon-stretching 632Nm of torque hitting the skids almost instantly thanks to car's clever launch control system and race-style dual-clutch rear transaxle, the GT-R edges ahead of the Porsche.

In the blink of an eye speeds have passed 150km/h and the Porsche has reeled in and overtaken the GT-R by the time we reach the quarter-mile mark at around 200km/h.

When all's said and done the Porsche 911 Turbo S is in front by more than a few car lengths.

I should be gutted, particularly because I was on the grippier side of the drag strip. But launching cars like these – flat-chat into the ether – is so utterly compelling I don't want to stop.

So we do it again, swap sides a few times and make all the necessary recordings.

After four runs, the GT-R's built-in self-preservation protocol engages. This requires the big orange robo-soldier to be coaxed along sedately for a little while before it allows more full-bore shenanigans. It's a cool-off period. Prudent.

The Porsche on the other hand just keeps taking the punishment. Again and again and again. If the R35 GT-R's launch is best described as brash and brutal, the 911 Turbo S is clinically sinister. The way it forces your body into the seat at full noise is intoxicatingly effective.

It's just as easy to set up as well, which means you could – if you didn’t value your licence – prime it for traffic-light duelling in no time at all.

In the end the Porsche was always quicker, with 100km/h coming up in 3.2sec – just three-tenths slower than its claimed time – compared with 3.3 for the Nissan (0.6sec).

It also slammed down consistent 11.0-second quarter-mile times, the Nissan managing a best of 11.4 on the less-than-ideal surface.

Ever since Porsche accused Nissan of cheating with its 2008 Nurburgring lap time of 7:28, besting the lap time of the 911 Turbo and even the GT2 in the process, the relationship has been frosty, if not openly hostile.

So when the chance to test the latest incarnations of the two arch-rivals alongside each other presented itself, we jumped.

Both are all-wheel drive, twin-turbo six-cylinder scorchers with 3.8-litre displacements. They share twin-clutch transmissions but the Porsche gets seven speeds versus the Nissan's six cogs.

Consider Nissan costs $267,200 less than the Porsche 911 Turbo S in Australia – $189,000 for the Nissan versus $456,200 for the Porsche – and it represents solid value.

It's a proper supercar, make no mistake. The MY17 GT-R belts out 419kW and 632Nm against the '991.2' series Turbo's 427kW and 700Nm, and when you factor in kerb mass (1717kg versus 1559kg) the chunky Nissan holds its head high.

Both cars are evil-quick and technology like launch control has made them quicker, faster and a lot easier to extract performance from.

No, with tyres cooked and rubber laid down, technology was far from a killjoy during our recent launch control shootout, which featured another four cars including the Ford Focus RS and BMW M3 if you want to read up on that.

What did we learn from this exercise? Testing high-performance cars like these at the drag strip is a hoot, especially when they can pin you into your seat in ways only race car drivers previously experienced.

Nissan GT-R vital statistics:
Price: $189,000 plus ORCs
0-100km/h: 2.7sec (claimed)
Actual 0-100km/h: 3.3sec (actual)
0-1320ft (1/4 mile): 11.4sec
Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo V6
Output: 419kW/632Nm
Transmission: Six-speed DCT
Tyres: 255/40 RF20 (front), 285/35 RF20 (rear)
Weight: 1717kg

Porsche 911 Turbo S vital statistics:
Price: $456,200 plus ORCs
0-100km/h: 2.9sec (claimed)
0-100km/h: 3.2sec (actua)
0-1320ft (1/4 mile): 11.0sec
Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat six
Output: 427kW/700Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed DCT
Tyres: 245/35 ZR20 (front), 305/30 ZR20 (rear)
Weight: 1559kg