There have been plenty of tuned street cars with well over 1,500 horsepower in recent years, but until various companies started modifying all-wheel-drive monsters like the Lamborghini Gallardo->ke375 or the Nissan GT-R,->ke1592 those huge horsepower numbers didn't necessarily translate into record-breaking performance numbers – at least not without drag->ke446 slicks.
We are now in 2015, and a Nissan GT-R with 1,600+ horsepower just hit 209 mph during the so-called Shift S3ctor Pikes Peak Airstrip Attack event, all while a passenger with a camera was riding shotgun. At first, because of a timing-equipment malfunction, everyone at the event thought that the car had actually hit an even more-unbelievable 214 mph, with the car also turning in the quickest quarter-mile of 7.83 seconds and the highest half-mile speed in the world for a GT-R. Even so, for a car that is entirely street-legal and looking like it did the run in the calmest way possible, 209 mph is no mean feat.
Especially amusing may be the fact that most planes taking off from the exact airstrip where the event took place usually require less speed in order to get airborne, so the video above kind of puts things in perspective, doesn't it? Any day now, this exact Nissan GT-R model may actually snatch the world's fastest GT-R trophy from the 2,000-horsepower Alpha Omega R35, another "Godzilla" specifically modified to break records at the drag strip.