Nissan Dealers Reluctant to Allow Test Drives in Japan

J-Cast

The sales plan for GT-R is 200 units per month. The advance orders for the car had totalled for 2,282 units as of Nov. 14 since such orders began to be accepted on Sept. 26. The orders are still coming in increasingly. The car is produced at the company's Tochigi plant, and its production plan is 1,000 units per month.

The GT-R cars are displayed or prepared for test-driving only at the dealers designated in principle by the company as the Nissan High Performance Center (NHPC). It would be natural for car users to think they could test-drive the car if they visit one of the NHPC's located at 160 different places throughout the country. The dealers are, however, reluctant to let the customers test-drive the high-priced car.

There are some other dealers which display one of the two GT-R cars provided by the maker at NHPC and use the other one as a "customer attraction" at a different dealer that is not designated as NHPC. GT-R is just the car for customer attraction. Luring more visitors to the dealer by taking advantage of the GT-R display, efforts are made to increase the sales of such other models of cars as Skyline and Skyline Coope.

Nissan is encouraging the NHPC's to keep test-driving cars. At present, however, users who want to test-drive the GT-R cars had better call NHPC's to find out if they have the cars for test-driving before visiting.