Nissan GT-R news - GT-R breaks loose - 2007

You're looking at the first-ever official pictures of the Nissan GT-R. We've seen disguised prototypes testing at the Nurburgring and on the Goodwood hill, we've seen teasing preview shots, but you weren't meant to see these until the Tokyo show next week.

But thanks to an embargo-busting move from an American magazine - who, we're told, will never get to drive a GT-R again as a result - Godzilla has broken loose, and it's every bit as cool as we'd hoped. With its huge rear spoiler, quad exhausts and fat front arches, it looks even closer than we'd expected to the prototype that we saw two years ago in Tokyo.

Watch a YouTube clip of the GT-R at Goodwood

Watch the GT-R testing at the 'Ring 

Watch the prototype on the road

We'll have to wait until next week to get all the official details on the GT-R, but we already know it'll be seriously quick. Under the bonnet is a 3.8-litre V6 sending some 480bhp and 434lb ft of torque through all four wheels.

Transmission comes courtesy of a dual-clutch six-speed semi-auto with paddle shifters, which will help see the GT-R to 60mph in the 3.5-second bracket. Top speed is reported to be 192mph, which puts the GT-R right into Porsche 911 Turbo territory. As we said, quick.

And even the name has got a bit quicker: Nissan last month announced that the new Godzilla will be known simply as the GT-R, dropping the Skyline suffix of previous models.

In Japan, the Skyline is a cooking-model saloon, like a Vectra, and the GT-R has always been a high-performance derivation of it. Now, the GT-R is a bespoke supercar, built from the ground up to be as good as it can be, a real image-booster for Nissan worldwide.

The GT-R will go on sale in Japan after its formal Tokyo unveiling next week, but we're unlikely to see it in the UK until late next year.

That's the bad news, but on the plus side it gives you a bit of time to start saving: though we won't get official word on pricing for a while yet, the GT-R is likely to undercut the 911 Turbo by a sizeable margin.

For more information on the awesome GT-R - and everything else at the Tokyo show - check back to TopGear.com next week.