The 2012 Nissan GT-R has only just come onto the market, bringing with it a more powerful engine and a string of handling mods that guarantee the car reliably dishes out 2.9 second 0-60 mph times and can lap the Nurburgring in a smoldering 7 minutes and 24.22 seconds. However, sources in Japan have now confirmed that a more powerful version is set to debut next year, which suggests that it will hit showrooms in time for the 2013 model year.

Speaking with Inside Line, a Nissan insider revealed that the GT-R’s output will rise beyond the current 523 horsepower and 451 pound-feet of torque of the 2012 model, though probably not by as much as the 30 horsepower Japanese media have been reporting.

It’s not clear whether this more powerful GT-R will be a special edition model, though it’s certain to be sold globally unlike the hyper-expensive SpecV and EGOIST editions that are currently limited to Japan.

Incidentally, the SpecV model, which sells in Japan for almost double the cost of the standard GT-R despite offering no increase in power, will cease production at the end of this year.

It is expected to be replaced by a new SpecR model weighing in at around 130 pounds less than the standard GT-R and priced significantly less than the SpecV.

Nissan’s decision to keep the power outputs of all its GT-R variants the same is apparently the desire of the car’s chief engineer Kazutoshi Mizuno, who is said to be a fan of making the base model the best he can. It’s hard not to love this guy.

[Inside Line]