Given its limited production numbers and stunning performance, you might think the 2009 Nissan GT-R would get its very own assembly line, a place where a small group of technicians work in near silence, slowly piecing together individual cars like craftsmen in a hot-rod shop.

That thought goes out the window the second you walk into the assembly area at Nissan's assembly plant in Tochigi, Japan, about 60 miles outside Tokyo. There, on various racks and conveyor belts, are GT-Rs all right, but they're mixed in among Infiniti G37 coupes and G35 sedans just like any other Nissan. They're all headed down the same production line and assembled by the same technicians.

So it's not what you might expect, but this doesn't tell the whole story of the 2009 Nissan GT-R's assembly process. There are areas where the GT-R does get special attention from dedicated technicians, but you have to take a few steps back in the build process to find them.