Nissan rental
Kuala Lumpur

The R35 GT-R is the most technically stubborn car on this site. Nissan built it to embarrass cars costing three times as much, and it did, repeatedly, for over a decade. The VR38DETT is a 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged V6 hand-built by a single technician in a clean room in Yokohama, and the transmission is not in the engine bay at all — it is a rear-mounted six-speed dual clutch in a transaxle layout, connected by a carbon-composite propshaft, with a second driveshaft running power back forwards to the front axle when the ATTESA system decides the rear wheels have had enough.

That layout is the reason the car launches the way it does. Weight distribution sits close to 54:46, not the nose-heavy figure a front-engined all-wheel-drive car would normally carry, and the all-wheel-drive system is rear-biased and reactive, never permanently split. The result is a 2.9-second 0–100 time from a car that weighs over 1,700 kilograms, which remains genuinely absurd. The GT-R does not accelerate so much as reposition itself.

It is also, and this surprises people, an easy car to live with in Kuala Lumpur. Ground clearance is normal-car normal, so basement ramps and speed humps are non-events. Visibility is good. The interior is unremarkable and hard-wearing, which means nobody is precious about it. The transaxle gearbox is noisy at low speed — a mechanical whine and a clunk on the one-two shift that is characteristic, not faulty, and which we point out at handover because first-timers always ask.

There is a cultural reason to rent one too. For a whole generation of Malaysian enthusiasts, the GT-R is the poster car — Gran Turismo, the R32 Skyline's Group A dominance, the mythology around the model line long before the R35 existed. Renting one is not the same experience as renting a Lamborghini. It is a more personal one, and for a lot of people it is the more meaningful of the two.