Nissan Reveals Dramatic GT-R Nismo GT500 Racer

Feast your eyes on this hairy-chested GT-racing beast from Nissan. Called the GT-R Nismo GT500, it’s designed to lock horns with some of the best sports car racers in the world in next year’s Japanese Super GT series. It could come to Europe, too.

Sadly you can forget about engine details for now, since Nissan doesn’t want to let anything slip that might give the nosey neighbours at next year's rivals Honda and Lexus an advantage.

But what we do know is that the Nismo GT500, like the Honda NSX Concept-GT, has been developed to meet the chassis rules for DTM touring car racing, meaning the door is wide open for the latest breed of hyper-sports cars to tear up a track near us in 2014 - albeit with different engine specs to the Japanese Super GT configuration.

This is a huge deal for Nissan and the Nismo sub-brand. The hardcore tuning industry doesn’t generate enough sales, so Nismo has gone mainstream. By racing with the Nismo name in lights, Nissan is hoping to sell more Nismo-badged cars like the Juke we tested earlier this year. Hands up who think this looks the nuts.