The fascination with remote-controlled vehicles can be best witnessed amongst video-gamers who want to enjoy car racing within the confines of their home. Amongst all the car companies, Nissan is the one that seems to have capitalized the most on this trend and that too due to the popularity of the Gran Turismo (GT) video game series. Nissan cars have been prominently featured in all Gran Turismo games and hence the Japanese carmaker has seriously gone a step ahead to build an actual Nissan GT-R that can be controlled by a PlayStation DualShock 4 controller.
The Nissan GT-R/C was recently tested at the GT Academy in UK and it was controlled by Jann Mardenborough who was sitting in a helicopter hovering above the remote-controlled car. Jann is the winner of the GT Academy program which is coordinated by Nissan along with PlayStation. The GT Academy selects winners of the GT virtual racing game and grooms as real-world racing drivers. The car was boosted by a V-6 engine that provides 542 bhp. During the lap time of 1:17:47, the remote-controlled car managed to be driven at an average speed of 76 mph and a top speed of 113 mph.
The data regarding the car’s speed was captured by Racelogic VBOX Motorsport sensor and relayed to Jann on an LCD display. The Nissan GT-R/C will be featuring in all the upcoming editions of Gran Turismo. The car with robotic controls will be reportedly exhibited in primary as well as secondary schools. The exhibition will help to motivate students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.
It appears that Nissan’s predominance in video games will prove to be a solid brand-building exercise for the car maker. It has also been reported that the Nissan Concept 2020 Vision Gran Turismo will also be featuring in the upcoming games. It will be interesting to see whether any of the upcoming Nissan cars will be as futuristic its virtual models.
