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The GT-R is smooth enough at low speed, although progress is punctuated by heavy-duty clunks and groans from the rear transaxle. It's a good clunking, though. More even than its 3.8-litre twin-turbo V6, the Nissan's transmission is a thing of wonder.

Its twin-clutch (one for the odd gears, the other for the even ones) dual shift gearbox is mounted - along with the centre differentials -in a single rubber-bushed unit, independent of the rest of the car. It helps optimise weight distribution but must have cost a fortune to develop. Its shifts are as fast as hell at high speed, but the 'box handles city stuff brilliantly too. A duality which gives clues to the GT-R's overall genius...

We're heading south out of Tokyo to the Hakone area. It's about 65 miles away, a popular destination for well-heeled city-dwellers who like to recharge in one of the region's many sulphurous spas and springs. Mount Fuji is visible in the middle distance, but obviously we have a different agenda: the Hakone Turnpike marks the start of a road famous amongst the 'drifting' and computer-gaming fraternity. The GT-R is coming home.

It's 1am now. My jet lag has jet lag. We stop to fuel up at some services in God-knows-where. The lighting in here is so bright it could illuminate Wembley. There are pictures on the wall of an attractive Japanese woman stuffing something unattractive into her mouth. We buy some Kitty cakes instead; real cat would probably be more appetising. The bottled water, meanwhile, is called Sweat. Great.

The only thing to do now is drive, and drive fast. They might be different in concept, execution and feel, but this much is true: the R8 and GT-R are both incredible. Japan has already succumbed to the idea of road pricing, so we're sort of horizontally bungee-jumping between toll booths. With zero local knowledge and the night clamping in tight, this is starting to feel like a simulator. Or perhaps a dream. After that David Lynch-directed pit-stop, things suddenly swim back into focus. What follows turns into the most intense drive of the year.

The GT-R is monstrously good. Three switches on the dash control the transmission (fast or f**k-me fast up and down-shifts, complete with meaty throttle blips), suspension (race, sport or comfort settings) and vehicle dynamics (stability control on or off). To tell you the truth, I forget which configuration I go for in the end. What I do remember is that the road has some rollercoaster dips and rises in it and some vicious mid-corner crests and bumps. Tricky stuff for a car whose Bilstein electronic dampers have to manage a hard-charging 1.7 tonnes.

But the GT-R locks on like a missile. (Polyphony missed a trick not fitting a display for that.) Apparently, it'll do a standing quarter mile in 11.7 seconds, and that feels about right. Seriously, this thing hooks up and accelerates like a Bugatti Veyron. The rapidity of the gearbox's upshifts - the Veyron has a DSG, remember - is one reason; the sheer devastating wallop of the engine is another.

OK, so it's half as powerful, and it's packing 10 fewer cylinders, but I reckon the GT-R could bother the Bugatti in a big way. It even sounds a bit Veyronish: closer to a giant industrial vacuum cleaner than a car, all rush and whoosh. Other impressions? Its body control over these bumps and crests is breathtaking. You just know that this car has been meticulously engineered down to the last tiny grommet.

To put it another way, it's making the R8 look very secondhand indeed. I can see in my mirrors that Germany is struggling to keep up with Japan. When we swap, it's clear that the Audi's 59bhp (414 to 473) power deficit isn't the only reason why. Quattro boss Stephan Reil told me earlier this year that the cost of developing DSG to fit the R8 would have made the project uneconomic, but its 'R-Tronic' system - a flappy paddle automated manual - is massively off-the-pace. Besides which, since when did Nissan have more money to invest than Audi? Developing its version of a transmission pioneered by, er, VW/Audi?