How The Nissan GT-R50 By Italdesign Came To Be

The story of a rare Italian-coachbuilt Japanese supercar.

Automakers the world over have long turned to Italian carrozzerie to reskin their cars in the most evocative, romantic, and elegant of styles. They’ve yielded famous partnerships like Chrysler by Ghia, Aston Martin by Zagato, and Peugeot by Pininfarina. Seldom have those commissions come from Japan, however, where carmakers tend to favor designing their own. That’s just part of what makes the Nissan GT-R50 by Italdesign such a rare specimen. And you can hear and see how it all came together in this latest video.

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Revealed just a few weeks ago and presented for the first time at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, the GT-R50 celebrates the 50th anniversaries of both the Japanese supercar-slayer popularly known as Godzilla and that of the design house founded by the legendary Giorgetto Giugiaro. It’s based on a Nismo GT-R, but draped in more elegantly aggressive bodywork to give the brutish sports car the styling (and the price tag) to run with Italy’s finest in appearance as it does in performance.

It’s a rare beast, of which Nissan and Italdesign will make just 50 examples – each selling for about €900,000. That in and of itself propels the GT-R out of sports-car territory, nipping at the heels of European exotics, and straight into hypercar territory. And it has the boost in performance to go with its new clothing and status. That 3.8-liter twin-turbo V6 in this application produces a handsome 710 horsepower and 575 lb-ft of torque, putting it (almost) in the same league as the likes of the Lamborghini Aventador, Ferrari 812 Superfast, and even the Pagani Huayra – exotics all, with twice the cylinder count and nearly twice the displacement… and the Italian coachwork to go with it.