AIMS: GT-R coming Down Under - it's official (October 2007)

The decision has been made -- Nissan's new GT-R is officially coming to Australia

Godzilla fans rejoice... With one short statement Nissan Australia boss, Shinya Hannya, has made the day (year!) of lovers of hot all-wheel drive turbo tear-aways.

Nissan's all-new GT-R (no Skyline attached these days) will be unveiled on October 24 at the Tokyo Motor Show. But that's old news... The good news is Hannya confirmed this last night in Sydney that the car will come Down Under as an official Nissan model.

"It's coming," the Nissan boss said. Short and sweet...

Details regarding timing and price are far from finalized and Hannya says the company is sworn to secrecy on all specification and performance details. What the company will say is first deliveries will take place in Japanese market later this year, with the USA getting the first left-hand drive cars in mid-2008.

Australia and markets like Europe are expected to be "the very back-end of 2008 or early 2009," according to Nissan Global Communications VP, Simon Sproule, also on hand for the announcement.

According to Sproule, Nissan Japan opened its sales effort for the all-wheel drive twin-turbo V6 super-coupe via the web on September 24

He would quantify the official order total, saying the uptake was already "significant".

Pricing for the car starts from around Yen7.8m in Japan. Don't expect the car to be quite that affordable (under $70,000) when it arrives in Oz however.

Hannya says the local operation is yet to decide on the distribution network strategy for the GT-R. In some markets Nissan has set-up a high performance dealer network ahead of the car's arrival.

Nissan has also announced pricing and specifications of its trio of new models: Micra, Dualis and X-TRAIL ahead of their unveiling at the Australian International Motor Show today..