It's rare these days to sees craftsmanship of this caliber applied to a car. Robots can do the job much faster. And when we refer to 'craftsmanship' here, we mean doing things the old-fashioned way by hammering and bending sheet metal by hand in an Italian workshop. That's exactly how the Nissan GT-R50 by Italdesign was built prior to its global debut last summer at the 2018 Goodwood Festival of Speed. The Turin-based design firm founded by the one and only Giorgetto Giugiaro has designed some of the most stunning supercars to come out of Italy, but in more recent years it ran into serious financial troubles. Fortunately, the Volkswagen Group, specifically Audi, came to the rescue.

Along with the GT-R50, Italdesign has kept itself busy with the Lamborghini Huracan-based Zerouno coupe and roadster, but it's the Nissan that does it for us. This newly released video from the Japanese automaker is a mini-documentary of sorts, showcasing just about everything that went into creating the GT-R50.

Starting off with the donor GT-R Nismo, the Italdesign team literally ripped it apart piece by piece inside and out. Down to its bare metal frame, Italdesign got to work with their hammers and 3D printers. The latter was required in order to achieve most of the GT-R50's stunning shapes. Even the electronic mechanism for the deployable rear spoiler is a work of art.

Not only is the Nissan GT-R50 the perfect tribute to the soon to be retired R35 generation, but also a brilliant example of how old and new build technologies can be blended together. Just 50 GT-R50s will be built at a price tag of around $1 million each. Not surprisingly, the lucky buyers have the opportunity to customize their cars to individual tastes. The GT-R50 shown in this video was the one brought to Goodwood and we're fans of its Liquid Kinetic Gray exterior paint with those cool gold accents. Not a bad way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of both Italdesign and the GT-R.