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While Ghosn called the shots, Kazutoshi Mizuno, chief vehicle engineer and chief product specialist, choreographed the GT-R's journey from a Japanese concept to Germany's famed Nürburgring racetrack, where it clocked 0 to 60 m.p.h. (100 km/h) in 3.2 sec., a wink faster than Porsche's GT3. "Mizuno was responsible for cherry-picking those he wanted to work with," says Hiroshi Hasegawa, chief designer of the GT-R. "Information cascaded from him." A veteran racing-system developer and director, Mizuno asked Ghosn to allow for a race-car development method. He started in December 2003, using early data on the GT-R concept to teach others how to reach the targets they would soon face in design. At that point, Mizuno says, he understood 120% of what needed to be done, but "others knew zero." Nissan held a global design competition--a first for the company--to pare down submissions for the car from 80 designers. About eight months later, Mizuno put together an approximately 100-person global team to execute the final design, which came under the direction of a six-person steering committee led by Ghosn in the spring of 2006.

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