Mazda GTR vs Nissan GTiR

[85GSi]

I am looking at a second car and these are two hot hatches with lots of potential that I'm finding hard to decide on.

Nissan Pulsar GTiR

Engine 2lt turbo 16V 4 cyl
Format 4WD
Weight 1220kg
Power 172kW@6400rpm
Torque 225Nm@4800rpm
0-100km/h 5.9
1/4 mile 14.05
Transmission 5 Spd


Mazda Familia GTR

Engine 1.8lt turbo 16V 4 cyl
Format 4WD
Weight 1240kg
Power 139kW@6000rpm
Torque 240Nm@4500rpm
0-100km/h 7.2
1/4 mile 15.0
Transmission 5 Spd

These specs seem to vary a lot from site to site, some saying that the familia gtr is actually up at 165kw.
The GTiR is supposed to have a tendancy to understeer compared to the better balanced GTR.

[Moppie]

Where in the world are you?

If your in NZ the GTR will get stolen.
The GTiR might not, but people will go looking for it.
Its a rather sad thing to say about NZ, but its unforunatly true.

As for performance both are very quick, and quite evenly matched.
They are both the product of Homolgation requirements for the same class of rallying in Japan, and both compteted side by side.
The GTiR should benifit however from more development work, as it was also used by a UK works team, and if the rules had gone the way they were expected to, and Nissan had had the money at the time it would have become a WRC entry.
As it was the Nissan went broke and the change to smaller bodied cars occured to late.
The GTiR was however quite dominant in the UK in group N and in terms of cool factor and desirablity its better than the Mazda.

Both of course have lots of tuning potential should you deciede to tweak them, and the only thing you should let sway you would be a drive of both cars.
That will tell you which better suits your needs.

[85GSi]

Well I am in New Zealand but the side of town where I live there isnt so much of a problem of it being stolen, but better to be safe than sorry. Well at the moment I'm preferring the GTiR but as you said, a test drive of both would be the deciding factor. I would intend to tweak either car, since watching 5th gear when that 400hp GTiR beat a dodge viper in a drag really appealed to me. Just an idea, but replacing some of the distinguishing features of the car such as the GTiRs bonnet with a different type could help the stealing thing.