Calling it the "first car whose reputation was forged primarily in the virtual world," The New York Times has a new report on the Nissan GT-R's imminent—and highly anticipated—American launch. For almost 20 years, car enthusiasts like me heard about the late 80's Skyline GT-R on occasion, usually in tangential reports from Japan about the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing and how we'll never see one in the U.S. Loaded down with technology, the GT-R exhibited a mystical aura among the faithful—and with good reason.

The Skyline GT-R was one of the first performance cars that had twin turbos and all-wheel drive. It was also conservatively rated at 276 hp—the old "gentleman's agreement" in Japan. But today, things are different. Along with a blistering 480 hp, the new 2009 car can hit 193 mph. It has a six-speed dual-clutch auto-manual transmission with a sequential mode and paddles on the steering wheel. The dual-clutch mode rips off shifts in less than 0.5 seconds, and less than 0.2 seconds when in R-mode.

The GT-R has both electronic traction control and a three-mode vehicle stability control, including a performance mode and the ability to switch it off entirely. Nissan also implemented Hill Start Assist, which helps to prevent rollback when moving the car off from a stop while on a hill. The tires, meanwhile, are nitrogen-filled Bridgestone RE070A high-capacity run-flat summer tires (255/40ZRF20 97Y front and 285/35ZRF20 100Y rear) mounted on 20-inch, super-light, forged aluminum wheels.

Inside, there's a 9.4GB hard-disk based stereo system with 11 speakers, along with hard-disk based GPS navigation with a 7-inch WXGA LCD display. There's a built-in CompactFlash card reader for loading up your tunes. Finally, the car comes with a configurable performance monitor, which was developed with Sony Polyphony and Xanavi Infomatics Corp. It shows graphical readouts of vehicle data and driving data displayed on a total of 11 switchable screens.

The original GT-R predated the 1991 Acura NSX and arguably had a reputation as the first Japanese supercar (not counting the 2000GT and the first Skyline GT-R in the late 1960's), even if it looked more like a 300ZX competitor than a Ferrari. With the advent of Gran Turismo on the PlayStation, a new generation of fans under 25 are ready for its release. I imagine Nissan hopes some of them can afford the $70k entry fee.