[NEWS] Final Nissan R35 GT-R rolls off the production line

    The Final Nissan R35 GT-R Rolled Off The Line
    After 18 Years And 48,000 Cars Built
    ---------------------------------------------
    We've known for a while now that Nissan was planning to kill
    the R35 GT-R. The company announced the final limited edition
    cars over a year ago, and closed its order books back in March.
    Today, though, the car is well and truly dead: 18 years after
    the first GT-R was built, the last R35 just rolled off the
    production line in Nissan's Tochigi factory. Over the course
    of its lifespan around 48,000 GT-Rs were built, 37% of which
    were sold in Japan, and during those 18 years only 9 Takumi
    craftsmen hand-built the V6 engines. The final car built wears
    Midnight Purple paint and gold wheels, which is a fitting
    sendoff for the car that singlehandedly changed the supercar
    world. 

    When the R35 was revealed in 2007, it brought three things to
    the table: Speed, reliability, and affordability. The 473
    horsepower it made may not sound like much now, but combined
    with its advanced all-wheel-drive system the GT-R put the big
    names on notice - when Nissan first showed it at the 2007 Tokyo
    Auto Show, it did so while boasting a Nürburgring time that
    beat the Porsche 911 Turbo. On a damp track. For half the money.
    It won Car and Driver shootouts, it was less than half a second
    off the acceleration of a Ferrari 430 Scuderia, and it cost
    under $70,000. The R35 GT-R - no Skyline badge this time -
    dragged supercars into the modern era of performance, and now
    it's dead.

    What's next?
    The R35 was the first production car to crack the 7:30 barrier
    at the Nurburgring, and that time was chipped down year after
    year until a 7:08.679 lap in 2013 set by a GT-R Nismo. Its
    pricing may have crept up alongside its power over the years,
    making it no longer the bargain it once was - it's still hard
    to find one for much less than that 2008 MSRP, and likely won't
    get any easier now - but the GT-R was always a performer. It's
    still an absolute bucket list drive for me, something I'm
    desperate to take a spin behind the wheel of.

    Nissan says this isn't the end for the GT-R nameplate, that a
    presumed R36 is somewhere down the way. But Ivan Espinosa, CEO
    of Nissan, says that "we don't have a precise plan finalized
    today," and that what the next GT-R will be is still up in the
    air. Whatever form it takes - hopefully something like the Hyper
    Force concept - if it ends up being half as revolutionary as the
    R35 was, we're in for a treat.


    
<https://www.jalopnik.com/1951065/final-nissan-r35-gtr-built-after-18-years/>