IT is quite possible that the enthusiasts who know the most about the Nissan GT-R are those still a few years away from getting their driving licenses. Such is the downside of a car best known as a video game icon. Even so, the GT-R%26#8217;s exterior styling is not so extreme that drivers old enough to vote would reject it as overtly adolescent.

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(February 24, 2008)

Here is a short course on the GT-R%26#8217;s lineage that will put you on even footing with the neighborhood preteens ahead of the car%26#8217;s arrival in June. The first-generation Nissan Skyline GT-R of 1969-72 was a rear-drive four-door sedan based on a design that Nissan inherited when it bought out another Japanese automaker, Prince, in 1966. A total of 1,945 were sold.The GT-R name was dormant until the R32 model of 1989, when it was applied to a coupe with a 276-horsepower in-line 6-cylinder. Nearly 44,000 were produced over a five-year run; most were white, Japan%26#8217;s racing color.The GT-R R33 model was made in 1995-99 and included an active limited-slip center differential and antilock brakes. Total production came to about 16,000, including a racing version that developed 400 horsepower.The 1999-2002 GT-R R34 introduced multifunction display screens. The base model had seven screens and the V-Spec had nine, including a measurement for G-force and a lap timer. (On the 2009 model, the PlayStation persona is more evident: its switchable dashboard can display 11 screens of data, including mechanical and driving information; acceleration; brake-pedal pressure; steering angle; and a 20-minute recording function with playback.) A total of 11,310 R34s were built. The rarest and most expensive are the racetrack-ready Z-tune version, built after the end of regular R34 production. As many as 150 right-hand-drive GT-Rs are thought to be in the United States. Most were brought in by MotoRex, a California tuning shop no longer importing them.

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