Everyone Loves The Underdog.

It's true.  It's part of the human psyche.  In a battle between David and Goliath, people are always going to hope that the slingshot wielding man takes down the towering beast.  Perhaps it's the societal interpretation of "Rage Against The Machine."  People want to see the scrawny midget kick the stuffing out of the club bouncer.

And so it is, I believe, with cars.  Or at least it seems to be that way.  Case in point:  Nissan's GT-R.  Now, this is not to say that the GT-R is a Pygmy in a room full of Amazons, or extraordinarily cheap.  In fact, if you point your browser over to Nissan's website, you'll see that $89,950 is required to put a new GT-R in your driveway.  If you select the Black package with Super Silver paint (odd), you can bring the MSRP damn near $100,000.  I don't know about you, but that's a lot of money.

However, as I'm sure you're tired of hearing, the GT-R possesses performance figures far above it's price range.  In a recent Road & Track article called "The Two Second Club," they put some timing gear on a 2012 GT-R, which has the updated 530-horsepower engine.  It's an alarmingly fast car.  With Launch Control engaged, it runs to 60mph in 2.94 seconds, 100mph in 7.3 seconds, and plows the quarter mile in 11.2 seconds at 123mph.  To buy another car that can hit 60 in less than three seconds from the factory, you'd have to spend $160,00 and change for a 911 Turbo S PDK.  Or $2.8 million for a Veyron Super Sport.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jOQFMlpdVI

So, for the price of 31 stock GT-R's, you can hit sixty about 0.4 seconds faster in a Veyron Super Sport.  I'm not thick-headed, and I realize that people who can afford Veyrons are cross-shopping Lear Jets, not Nissans.  But there's no way a GT-R could beat a Veyron in, say, a rolling-start mile drag race?  Not possible.  Orr, uhh...

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKY2_A_R5NU

Okay, surely a fluke.  Perhaps that particular GT-R had a prototype engine with valve springs made out of Chuck Norris' fists.  Come on.  This is a six-cylinder Nissan with an engine that has ties back to the Quest minivan.  Maybe the video was fake.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVJPVeU-Z0c

Alright, the Veyron got the drop on that standing start by more than a second, and there's not a lot of conclusive evidence in this particular video, considering it's shot on a highway at night in traffic (presumably "computer generated, in Mexico, professional stunt drivers, do not attempt!"), but this is a 730 horsepower GT-R that's not far off the pace of a Bugatti Veyron.  Of course, this is not where the GT-R underdog theory ends.  There are scores of videos of GT-R's just absolutely annihilating vehicles that should be faster.  Shoulda, woulda, coulda.  How about a $273,000 Bentley Continental SuperSport?  The one with carbon fiber instead of a back seat, and a 621-horsepower twin turbo W12?  Errr, nope.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qXYjBxnteA

Okay, this is getting ridiculous.  How about an 11-wide drag race including exotics like a Ferrari 458, Porsche 911 GT3RS, Audi R8 5.2, Mercedes SLS AMG, and Corvette Z06?  Nope, no, not at all - the GT-R is the first across the finish line, beating the quarter-million-dollar Ferrari 458 by a tenth of a second.  The $375,000 Lexus LF-A, the crown jewel of Toyota engineering, the car they had to create a new way to make carbon fiber to produce?  Nowhere close, at 11.9.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Kp-DqEUFg

How about highway rolls against a 750-horsepower tuned version of the supercharged Corvette ZR-1?  Surely a tuned ZR-1 can pull on a 6-cylinder Nissan at high speeds!  Once again... nope.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uORyZI1VdU

Maybe a Dodge Viper, the flag waver of American overpowered rocketships, with a Paxton supercharger strapped on it to make a thundering 750 horsepower.  In a standing mile, where the advantage of a fast all-wheel-drive launch is minimized?  Maybe a blown 8.3L V10 Viper can take out a 3.8L Nissan?  Nope.  In fact, the Viper gets off the line faster, but by the end of the standing mile, it's a half-second and 9mph behind through the traps.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQRFqV0numo

Ok, so tuned GT-R's don't seem to have trouble beating any kind of exotica.  SLS, LF-A, even a Veyron or two, tuned ZR-1's, what can't these things beat?  Well, how about one of Underground Racing's 1200 wheel horsepower twin-turbocharged Lamborghini Gallardo's, running on race gas?  What out there is faster than a twin-turbocharged UGR Gallardo?  Well, unless it's an AMS Alpha 12 GT-R.  Which makes 1200 wheel horsepower as well.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqrFIXnrugs

The Alpha 12 is pretty ridiculous, though.  It's a full-interior street car that does the quarter mile in 8.97 seconds (about a second quicker than a Veyron SS), and 60-130 in 3.31 seconds according to AMS, which is about a second and a half faster than said Veyron.  Remember though, even though it's a hugely expensive modification: it's still a Nissan.  With a sleeved 4.0L V6, huge turbos, and a professional built transmission by ShepTrans, we're still hardly even talking about a tenth the value of a Veyron.

Maybe we're looking in the wrong place for a challenger here.  Maybe the GT-R's combination of sophisticated launch control and leech-like grip, with the possibility of absurd aftermarket horsepower, is just a bit too much for other cars.  Maybe a sport bike can take the heavy Nissan sports car down a notch - after all, we're talking power to weight ratios that aren't even on the same planet as even very fast cars.  That seems more fair.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_s44QlTMcU

Ok, maybe not from a 30 roll.  How about from a standing start, where the GT-R has to overcome all 3,800lbs and change of mass to get moving?  And how about if we put it up against one of the absolute, bar-none fastest production motorcycles in the world: the 197mph Suzuki GSX-1300R Hayabusa?  Again, no: while the Hayabusa gets a decent lead in the beginning against this Switzer R850 GT-R, the Nissan still beats it in the quarter mile (10.71 vs 10.76), and by a wider margin in the standing mile (26.46 vs 26.93.)  Also notice how much higher the GT-R's trap speed (speed at the time it crosses the finish line) is: 197mph vs 183 for the 1300cc Suzuki.  Damn.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbYlZ18r4gU

Ahh.  It turns out, if you want to find the car that can beat the invincible underdog, you have to go back to the old underdog: the MkIV Toyota Supra Turbo.  It feels good to watch this 67mm single-turbo Supra walk this modified GT-R like it's standing still...  much in the same way that it feels good to watch a Switzer P800 pull on a Veyron.  The world comes full circle.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTmWa2dDXB0

Awesome intro image via MotorTrend.