Love, Actually

The mighty Nissan GT-R is naturally at the top of every car guy’s wishlist.

- Dinzo Tabamo

What is love? The dictionary tells us it is “an intense feeling of deep affection.” For car lovers, this also true. There’s so much more to loving cars than just pining for your dream ride.

Love is a man not telling his fiancée that he has bought a roadster. Love is a husband not telling his wife how much his car’s aftermarket parts cost. Love is a seaman browsing our buyer’s guide while away at sea, imagining which MPV he will buy for his family.

For me, love is walking around a car show until my feet can’t take it anymore, like a ballerina in a Black Mirror universe possessed by a cursed turntable to finish a macabre ballet. It was at a car show—the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show, to be exact—that I first met the current Nissan GT-R. It had just been revealed to the world, and smitten gearheads gazed upon it like it was the baby Jesus on Christmas Day.

The Nissan distributor back then already wanted to bring in the GTR, but the company had bigger problems to deal with first—like selling regular Nissans, which was rather essential to doing day-to-day business. For years, local car enthusiasts made do with gray-market imports, not letting the lack of official support get in the way of their affection for the Japanese super coupe.

But as any love-starved millennial would tell you, it ain’t love until it’s official. It took nine years, a complete corporate reorganization, and a shot of audacity from the newly formed Nissan Philippines for the GT-R to finally land on our shores.