Nissan GT-R Nismo: 100km/h in about two seconds!

Nissan’s GT-R supercar is already one of the world’s quickest production cars, but if a UK report proves correct it will soon set a new world record for standing-start acceleration.

According to Auto Express, Nissan’s upcoming GT-R Nismo will be capable of hitting 60mph (96.6km/h) in just two seconds, making it quicker than Bugatti’s multi-million-dollar Veyron Super Sport hypercar (2.4 seconds) and the stripped-out Ariel Atom V8 track special (2.3 seconds).

The British report quotes a Williams engineer as saying there is plenty of potential left in the GT-R’s existing 404kW/628Nm 3.8-litre twin-turbo V6, which currently propels it to 100km/h in a rapid 2.7 seconds but is rumoured to capable of at least 425kW and 650Nm.

“You’d be surprised at how much room for improvement there is – even with a car like the GT-R,” the unnamed Williams source told Auto Express at the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed. “Where you expect it’s all been tuned to the maximum, it’s actually easy to make big gains.”

Nissan announced in February that, starting with the GT-R, its Nismo performance division will develop at least one new high-performance model per year, before confirming in late June that it will partner with UK firm Williams Advanced Engineering, which helped Nissan create the Juke Nismo, to develop a series of high-performance road cars.

In potentially devastating news for GT-R fans here, however, Nissan Australia previously said it would consider all upcoming Nismo models but now says it has “no plans to introduce the GT-R Nismo in Australia at this stage”.

Auto Express claims the record-breaking GT-R Nismo will make its world debut at the Tokyo motor show in November, before going on sale globally in 2014.

Apart from more power, expect Nissan’s wildest production car ever to feature a host of aerodynamic and cosmetic additions, many of them crafted from carbon-fibre, as well as pricetag significsantly higher than the standard model’s relatively modest $172,000 starting price.

Before the end of this year, Nissan Australia will launch its new Juke compact crossover, Pathfinder large SUV and new mid-size Altima sedan, upon which the Japanese brand’s V8 Supercar racer is based. Its luxury brand Infiniti is also on target to release the new mid-size Q50 prestige sedan in the fourth quarter of 2013.

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