Nissan GT-R

The R35 Nissan GT-R was the company's technological halo car, engineered to deliver genuine supercar performance without supercar drama or price. Where the earlier Skyline GT-R models had been largely Japan-market cult heroes, the R35 dropped the Skyline name to stand alone and go global, carrying over only the lineage's signature quartet of round taillights. Its brief was blunt: to run with, and often past, machinery costing several times as much.

At its core sits a hand-assembled twin-turbocharged V6, the VR38DETT, each unit built by a single specialist whose name is fixed to the engine on a small plate. Drive is routed through a rear-mounted dual-clutch transaxle to all four wheels by Nissan's ATTESA E-TS system, an arrangement the company promoted as an industry first. The payoff is ferocious, repeatable acceleration in almost any conditions, the trait that earned the car its giant-killer reputation.

Rather than being replaced on a conventional cycle, the GT-R was revised year after year, with power, aerodynamics and chassis tuning steadily sharpened and hardcore Nismo variants pushing performance further still. Output climbed markedly from the launch cars over the model's run. Still on sale in 2024, well over a decade and a half after it first reached customers, the R35 had become one of the longest-lived designs in its segment.