Nissan GT-R R35

In 2007 Nissan did the unthinkable and cut the GT-R loose from the Skyline entirely. The R35 dropped the Skyline name, became a standalone model, and swapped the beloved (yet, now quite elderly) RB26 inline-six for the VR38DETT, a hand-built 3.8-liter twin-turbo V6. Purists clutched their pearls, then watched it humiliate supercars costing three times as much.

This was the GT-R reinvented as a giant-killer. At launch it made around 480 horsepower through a dual-clutch gearbox and a deeply sophisticated all-wheel-drive system, and reviewers quickly tagged it the computer on wheels for the way it deployed all that grip with near video-game precision. Fittingly, the studio behind Gran Turismo designed the graphics for its dashboard display. Across an extraordinary run that stretched past 2024, Nissan kept refining the formula, with later cars climbing toward 565 horsepower and the Nismo version reaching 600.

It is the only GT-R most Americans could buy new, since it was the first sold officially in the United States, and it carried the Godzilla legend into the modern era almost single-handedly. By the end it had grown heavy and expensive, and time caught up with the once-untouchable performance. Even so, the R35 spent the better part of two decades proving a Japanese company could build a world-beating supercar, which is exactly what the badge had promised since 1969.