Nissan GT-R: Demand Exceeds Supply

Motoring Channel Staff - 9/Apr/2008

London, England — Nissan's UK arm started taking pre-orders for the earth-shaking new GT-R less than a week ago, and the UK company reports that some 700 orders were taken in the first 48 hours for the $100,000+ super car.

The success of the new generation Nissan GT-R is not in question - it has been a sell out success in every country it's been launched.

While UK customers have been pre-ordering their new Godzilla's with cash deposits, the cars will not be delivered in Britain until 2009.

Nissan Australia has also said that Australian drivers will be able to get their hands on the GT-R in early 2009, but when we spoke to Nissan's head office it stated that pre-orders will not begin until local pricing has been confirmed.

When will this happen? Nissan Australia isn't talking just yet.

With huge sales in the UK already, the Brits are trying desperately to increase their allocation of cars delivered from Japan.

Paul Willcox of Nissan in the UK said that while "...an unprecedented amount of orders" had been placed in the UK, it is now trying to secure more cars from Japan, which if successful could further delay the introduction of the car into Australia.

Mr Willcox said that only 1000 Nissan GT-Rs are built per month in Japan, and that because the engine's are hand built, ramping up supply is not a cut and dry process.

Willcox added that the 1000 GT-Rs built every month have to "...satisfy all global demands covering America, Asia and Europe and therefore it will be late May before we know if we have been successful in our request."

In Britain the Nissan GT-R, which is powered by a twin-turbo 3.8-litre V6 outputting Porsche-slaying 353 kilowatts of power (480hp), costs£52,900. 

This equates to about A$114,000, but the Motoring Channel predicts an Australian price of around $130,000 for the Nissan GT-R.

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