The Nissan GT-R — or, as fans and enthusiasts like to call it, Godzilla, is an iconic piece of machinery. It is a supercar from one of the most popular car brands, Nissan, that, year after year, has kept a good reputation. From the Fast and Furious movies to real-life performance on the drag strip, the Nissan GT-R deserves its supercar title. While we expect many of the cars Nissan produces to be machine-built, you’ll be happy to hear that the Nissan GT-R motor is hand-assembled.

Hand-assembled vehicles

As you could imagine, having a vehicle, or a major component of a vehicle like an engine, assembled by hand is a rather extensive process. It requires precision that is vulnerable to human error, but it is also something special. When automotive manufacturers dedicate something to being hand-assembled, that means that it is being produced in low enough quantity for such a specialized task to be completed without a machine.

The Nissan GT-R engine assembly

Nissan wasn’t shy in sharing the fact that the engines of the GT-R are, in fact, hand-assembled, but not for every Nissan GT-R. This keynote is saved for a special edition, the Nissan GT-R NISMO Special Edition, to be exact. No pricing for the model has been released yet, but Nissan has promised that production numbers will be limited and exclusive.

Master technicians, called takumi, work to assemble the entire engine from start to finish. This is done in a cleanroom to avoid any contaminants from getting into the engine. To mark this special process on the limited edition variant of the supercar, an aluminum plate mounted to the front of each engine block bears the signature of the takumi.

The Nissan GT-R NISMO Special Edition

The hand-assembled engine isn’t the only characteristic that makes the Nissan GT-R NISMO Special Edition stand out. The cars are an exclusive Stealth Gray, accented by 20-inch forged aluminum wheels by RAYS and red accents. This edition is also the first time the Nissan logo will be placed onto the car’s trunk lid and center wheel caps.

Under the hood of Godzilla sits a 3.8-liter twin-turbo V6 engine that pushes the car with 600 hp and 481 lb-ft of torque, making it another high-performance model of the beloved Nissan GT-R. This engine setup isn’t unfamiliar to GT-R owners and fans, but Nissan promises that this engine is more dialed with higher tolerances to offer the best driving experiences yet.

We can only guess as to what prices for the new Nissan GT-R NISMO Special Edition will be, but we won’t be seeing it hit the American market until later this fall. What we know for sure is that this unique, partially hand-assembled version of the car will undoubtedly be more expensive than the GT-R NISMO alone, which, for the 2021 model, came with a heft price tag of $210,740 to start.