2024 Nissan GT-R: Godzilla brings back Millennium Jade (again)

Nissan’s all-wheel-drive, turbocharged supercar is entering its 15th year on the market. That makes the car world’s “Godzilla” older then Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.” Feeling nostalgic? So is Nissan, though Canadian pop doesn’t really come into the picture.

For 2024, the sixth-gen GT-R remains, essentially, the sixth-gen GT-R: Japan’s Lambo-killer, a two-door whose turbocharged V-6 sends between 565 and 600 hp to all four wheels. (How much power depends on how much money you want to spend.) All models get their mugs and tails tweaked, the top-dog model gets an upgrade to its AWD system, and a retro-inspired special edition returns in a limited run.

First off, those cosmetic differences. They’re designed to improve downforce—the downward push of air on the car, which improves traction—while maintaining the GT-R’s drag coefficient, a measurement of how well the car slips through the air. At some point, you have to choose which attribute to prioritize; you can add so many downforce-improving fins and flaps that the car becomes less aerodynamically slippery.

Nissan struck a happy medium, using a thinner mesh in the grille, adding some fun new lighting elements in the car’s cheeks, fussing with the front canards (the sticky-outy bits on either end of the front air dam) and redesigning the rear wing.

That’s all Nissan wrote for the base, or Premium car, which makes 565 hp. Its 600-hp sibling, tuned by Nissan’s in-house motorsports department, NISMO, and wearing its name, is the only model to receive a “first-time” upgrade for 2024. It comes in the form of a limited-slip differential for the front axle. This type of “diff” is, like the aerodynamic change, aimed at improving traction. Rather than manipulating the air, however, an LSD changes the amount of power sent by the engine to the wheels. When it senses that one wheel is slipping, it reduces the power sent to that wheel, giving it time to regain traction.

NISMO models also get an optional appearance package, though we can’t tell you how much it costs. But if you really like red rims on your wheels, the upgrade has your name on it—there’s also a different engine cover, but Nissan didn’t provide photos of it. Sigh.

Now, to the stuff the GT-R geeks will nerd out about: The T-Spec is returning—in a limited but as-yet undisclosed number—for 2024. We last saw this fancified version of the 565-hp GT-R Premium in the 2022 model year. It was a big deal not because it made more power (it didn’t) but because it was the only way to get Millennium Jade or Midnight Purple paint.

Lest you think these colors are just “green” or “purple,” know that they hearken back to two exotic variants of the previous-gen (R34) GT-R that loom large in Godzilla lore.

Millennium Jade was only offered on the 2002 V-Spec II Nür and the M-Spec Nür, the send-off, high-performance editions of the R34 generation and some of the most desirable models in the JDM collector market today. According to GT-R Registry, only 300 cars were ever painted in this icy hue.

Midnight Purple has appeared in three variants, designated by Roman numerals, the last variant known as Midnight Purple III, which ended production in 2000. (There was also, confusingly, a Midnight Opal, a very dark color worn by a 2014 Special Edition. See above.) To our eyes, the R35 T-Spec’s Midnight Purple hews closer to the darker, original shade on the R33 than the iridescent MPIII worn by the R34. Nostalgic acronyms galore! Nissan, your heritage-minded fans thank you—and inquire, politely, when we get to add R36 to the mix.

The facelifted Godzillas will be available starting this summer, but there’s no word on pricing. All we can do is give you the current numbers—$115,435 for a Premium, $140,285 for a T-Spec, and $212,635 for a NISMO—and suggest you add a bit. And then a bit more, since inflation.

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