This Nissan GT-R looks like the evil cop car from Transformers

I think the conversation went something like this: “Hey, you know what would be cool? If we took a Nissan GT-R and made it look like the evil cop car from Transformers.” “Yeah! Let’s do that!”

And so here we are, standing outside a parking garage near Times Square with a dozen gawking tourists, staring at a matte black Nissan GT-R with Skyline Metro Police Department emblazoned on the side. The dozens of police strobe lights especially enthrall the kids.

Between a Nissan Rogue built for dogs, another equipped with tank tracks, and this outrageous whatever-it-is, Nissan has gone all out on stunts for the New York Auto Show. And that’s awesome. 

So many car companies are focused on building reliable, fuel-efficient cars (including Nissan, to be fair), that sometimes we forget that cars are supposed to make people smile. They’re meant to be outrageous.

“This is nuts, you know that, right?” I said to a Nissan PR person showing me the car, only to get a giggle in response.

Nissan took a standard Nissan GT-R Premium (starting price: $109,990), gave it a matte black wrap, aftermarket coil-over shocks, and crazy 22-inch rims meant to evoke the plain steel rims of a regular cop car. It doesn’t look like a regular cop car. According to a spec sheet, the car has nearly four dozen different LED light elements from Federal Signal, plus a loudspeaker and siren mounted on the front push bar. 

Carbon fiber accents abound, with widened fenders, a ridiculous-looking carbon fiber rear wing, and window tint. And, incredibly, all the customization has been designed to be flawlessly removed so the GT-R can eventually be sold (it’s orange underneath). Sadly, the car won’t be at the Nissan booth on the show floor at the New York Auto Show this year, so these pictures will have to do the trick for now.