There she is front and center in the showroom!
I like the lines of the 4BA T-Spec facelift better than any other GT-R variant. The facelift looks different but not weird to my eyes. The LED running lights look integral to the design rather than an afterthought as they did in the DBA. The rest of the facelift gets rid of the blockiness and heavy look of the old design’s body lines. The T-Spec has the wider front fenders of the JDM track spec, wider front wheels, and the carbon ceramic brakes of the Nismo version as well as a unique interior.
The lightning bolt-looking headlights with LED features look very contemporary while the other front fascia lines and styling features reduce the bulk of the look while staying true to the GT-R DNA. Pinnacle had applied Xpel paint guard film and ceramic heat-blocking window tint to the car which was fine by me as I would do this anyway. The workmanship of these dealer add-ons was great. The front end is conventional looking now with a body-colored divide and an upper and lower grill instead of the older design that had a huge carp mouth look. I really like how this looks much better, sleeker, and lighter looking.
The rear of the car doesn’t look as different to me. But the lines are still complimentary. The new painted carbon rear spoiler is larger and more aggressive. Supposedly the new car produces more overall downforce with no increase in drag, despite the wider front fenders. The standard exhaust is now made of titanium to save some weight.
The huge carbon ceramic front brakes are from the Nismo edition and are the largest production brakes offered on any Japanese production car. We added these at great expense to our dead Project GT-R.
13 comments
Congratulations Mike! I hope you drive this one more than a few oil change intervals! Cool story too. I’m sad that more people don’t know who you are. You are a legend and deserve the red carpet.
Congrats on the new GT-R!!! but if you have to say it doesn’t look weird…
I didn’t really like the styling of the CDA at all, the DBA was a little better but the 4DA is nice I think.
Mike, congrats on the GTR, I am happy to hear that there are still well to do dealers out there. I am in the process of buying my first car so I sympathize with the frustration of dealing with prices these days (though I am definitely not shopping anywhere close to the price range of the T-Spec lol). In any case, I found your candor in your review to be very refreshing. I think the term ‘wine and cheese’ journalists is well suited to many writers and critics around the industry. As someone hoping to make a career in this vast industry, I was pushed to do journalism for the longest time. However, nowadays it feels like these ‘wine and cheese’ journalists put certain manufacturers on pedestals based on current trends (i.e. the Porsche hype). Anyhow, I’ll spare you the rant and I just want to say I’m a huge fan of what MotoIQ is doing, keep it up!
p.s: I’ve noticed that wearing your apparel to events always attracts the best kinds of enthusiasts, I couldn’t have imagined I would meet so many smart people because of a sweatshirt!
Thank you for your support!
Hello Mike,
How did your insurance handle the value of the mods?
They paid me a good price for the car, then I bought the car back and sold it to someone who loved the car that had connections to fix it.
Curious if you bought back the old car for the parts.
I did and sold it.
Man, if money wasn’t an object… I’d love to find another S13 and try to build a more modern version with the T-Spec as the aspirational goal. This car is gorgeous.
The fact that you got one right after tells me that the R35 GTRs are great cars. This post was a great read on how much they refined this car over the different generations. Shame android auto hasn’t been fitted to the car! I’ve notice Lexus took a long time to include it too.
Mike san, the end there with Tamura san signing the page with the child and his comment is not surprising culturally and melts my heart. Congratulations and I will reference this article again when I’m ready to also earn one and be my own pinnacle of a car enthusiast. In the meantime, I’ll just live vicariously through you.
So happy for you Mike. I was watching all your vlogs on the DBA as I recently purchased one and liked how you were doing the build.
Enjoy the T Spec; you deserve it 100 percent!
Andy from NZ