Straightline

We've heard of motorcycles backing it in to corners, but an S13? Yep. Video after the break.

Car Domain via Autoblog

Continue reading Best Drift Ever? .

Categories: Motorsports,Nissan

Categories: Future Vehicles,Infiniti,Luxury Cars,Nissan,Sedans,Tokyo Motor Show

I managed to catch Nissan's zoomy Land Glider showcar -- and let's face it, you gotta have a zoomy showcar at the Tokyo show -- showing off for the crowd. It leans, you see, but it's all an act.

Motorcycles lean into turns because of physics. Cars like this one only lean into turns because they have complicated mechanisms that force them into position.

Click the jump to see what I mean.

Continue reading Nissan Land Glider at the 2009 Tokyo Auto Show.

Categories: Nissan

Affordable zero-emissions vehicles are here. That was Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn's message at his 2009 Tokyo Auto Show press conference this morning. Prius owners can suck it, he added. OK, I made that last part up.

First, there's the Leaf -- a five-passenger, C-segment-size hatchback equipped with Nissan's proprietary lithium-ion battery pack. The Leaf is an EV from the ground up -- it doesn't share its chassis with any other vehicle. Range is said to be 160 km (100 miles), and Ghosn insists the Leaf will be price-competitive with gasoline-powered vehicles of similar size.

Want one? If you live in the U.S. or Japan, you'll be able to buy one in late 2010.

Other Nissan EVs will follow the Leaf. The second one planned will be targeted at commercial use and is based on the company's NV200 multipurpose vehicle.

The third will be a compact, high-performance luxury four-seater badged as an Infiniti. The fourth EV planned is the Land Glider, which I'll be bringing to you in a follow-up post.

Jason Kavanagh, Engineering Editor

Categories: Future Vehicles,Green Tech,Nissan,Sedans,Tokyo Motor Show

We don't know if the valet circle at the massive Hilton Tokyo constitutes as a satellite booth at the Tokyo auto show, but it's awfully coincidental that both a red and a yellow Fiat 500 showed up at the same time. Park a Nissan GT-R in front of them and they get 10 times more interesting.

Categories: Fiat,Nissan,Tokyo Motor Show

At a roundtable media dinner in Tokyo, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn fleshed out the company's strategy regarding zero-emission vehicles. The short of it is that battery electric vehicles (EVs) will dominate Nissan's efforts in the immediate term, with fuel cell vehicles "five to ten years down the road."
 
Ghosn's aggressive plans for battery EVs are rooted in the goal of converting 10 percent of the global car market to EV by 2020. He cited three primary reasons for pursuing zero-emission vehicles: national security, the instability of future oil prices and that EVs already have consumer demand.

Continue reading Ghosn Lays Out Nissan's Electric-Car Strategy .

Categories: Green Tech,Nissan,Tokyo Motor Show

Do you remember the day the original Nissan 240Z arrived? Yes? Well then, you sir are officially old.
It's been nearly forty years since that fateful day in 1969, and Nissan wasn't about to let that date slip without tarting up a 370Z for buyers who are into that sort of thing.

In this case, the 40th anniversary 370Z starts out as a Touring coupe with a manual transmission. From there it gets special "40th Quartz" paint, a couple badges, red brake calipers and a unique smoke finish for the 19-inch Rays wheels. The interior is draped in red leather set off by various pieces of trim with red stitching. There's a commemorative plaque as well, so you know you're in the club. Sales begin next spring.

Categories: Classic Cars,Coupes,Nissan,Sports Cars

Nothing like a hometown crew to get the best access. Looks like MotorMagazine in Japan has already been up close and personal with several of the cars debuting at the 2009 Tokyo Auto Show in a couple of weeks. The Toyota FT-86, Honda CR-Z, Mitsubishi PX-MiEV, Nissan Leaf and Mazda Kiyora are all laid out for your inspection. Enjoy all of their hard work.

MotorMagazine

Categories: Concept Vehicles,Coupes,Future Vehicles,Green Tech,Honda,Mazda,Nissan,Sports Cars,Tokyo Motor Show,Toyota

Although not exactly a new concept, the leaning car idea used by the Nissan Land Glider always looks kind of cool. In this case, the ultra-compact city car can lean up to 17 degrees, all of it calculated by on board computer to make you don't lean yourself right into the pavement.

Powered by an all-electric drivetrain, Nissan sees the Land Glider as fun-to-drive commuter car with an ultra-small footprint to make it easy to park. At just 122-inches long, the Land Glider is slightly bigger nose to tail than a Smart Fortwo.

SEMA Preview: Nissan Land Glider Concept

Categories: Concept Vehicles,Coupes,Future Vehicles,Green Tech,Nissan,Tokyo Motor Show

A reporter from PistonHeads apparently struck up converstation with Nissan's VP of global product planning, Andy Palmer, who told him the Nissan GT-R would see significant updates around the year 2013. And evidently, those updates will be signficant enough to constitute the R36 generation of the GT-R. But don't expect the platform architecture to change. And don't expect Nissan to deviate from the current twin-turbocharged V6 and complicated, but brutally effective rear transaxle.

PistonHeads

Categories: Nissan,Sedans

The Nissan Micra/March is the B segment Nissan most of the world gets instead of, or in addition to, the larger Renault-based Versa and the Cube. Today Nissan released sketches of the next March/Micra hatchback.

They're very preliminary, obviously, but the importance of this car is undeniable. It will be sold everywhere, and given tightening fuel economy standards, it's possible a version of it might come to the U.S.

So far, all we know is some information out of Thailand that 1.2-liter and 1.3 gasoline engines will be offered in the version sold there, along with a 1.4-liter diesel. The smallest gas engine would evidently be good for 47 mpg, but it's likely the diesel would top that.

The second sketch is after the jump.

IL News: Nissan Offers First Look at Future Global Compact Car

Continue reading Early Sketches of Nissan's Next Global Small Car.

Categories: Hatchbacks,Nissan

Update: GT-R Blog is reporting that two more R34 GT-Rs were seized today by ICE officials, along with an R32, and is warning Kaizo-imported GT-R owners living in Southern California to keep an eye on their cars.

It would seem the U.S. Justice Department has a bee in its bonnet over R34 Nissan Skylines imported by Kaizo Industries. The GT-R USA blog is reporting that another R34 GT-R has been seized by Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, who evidently showed up at the owner's home and took the vehicle.

Kaizo Skylines are shipped over from Japan as DOT-compliant body shells, but without their drivetrain components -- thus making them legal to import as "automotive components" under U.S. law. Kaizo, which has a presence on both sides of the Pacific, then reinstalls those drivetrain bits in California. It's a business, and a legal way of acquiring an R34 GT-R to own and drive in the U.S.

GT-R Blog is speculating that the car's SB 100 registration status might have stacked the decks against the owner and car. SB 100 is an exemption for kit cars (that aren't going to be driven much) that allows them to be registered without a smog test; only 500 cars statewide per year can be registered this way.

GT-R USA Blog

Categories: Nissan,Sports Cars,Tuners and Modifications

Apart from last week's teaser detail shot, Nissan had been hoping to keep photos of the refreshed 2010 Altima under wraps until next month. But today this semi-fuzzy shot of the Nissan Altima has leaked all over the web. Below is the pre-refreshed Altima for your comparative enjoyment. The leak occurred inadvertently (apparently), as Automotive News was reporting on a recall for faulty struts used on Nissan's Canton, Mississippi, production plant's assembly line.

Automotive News (sub.req)

Categories: Nissan,Sedans

You don't usually expect to get teased when a car is getting no more than a mid-cycle refresh, but that's the tack Nissan is taking with its lightly updated 2010 Nissan Altima. The company released this shot (left side) of the 2010 sedan today but was mum on details.

To help reveal some of the differences, we've cropped a photo of a 2009 Altima sedan the same way. So that's the 2010 model on the left and the 2009 car on the right. Differences in the headlight design, grille and the contours of the hood are apparent.

Additional information has leaked out on the Web. Apparently, the four-cylinder, 2.5 S Altima coupe will upgrade from 16- to 17-inch wheels this year (though the 215/55R17 rubber is still all-season) and pick up stability control as standard. Also, look for a revised Tech package that includes Infiniti line's hard-drive-based navigation system and on-board music storage. A USB input is on the list, though Nissan is reportedly adding streaming Bluetooth as well. Also, there's a trim level called 3.5 SR, which we presume will supersede the existing 3.5 SE.

Autoblog

Categories: Coupes,Nissan,Sedans

Inside Line tests hundreds of vehicles a year, but not every vehicle gets a full write-up. The numbers still tell a story, though, so we present "IL Track Tested." It's a quick rundown of all the data we collected at the track, along with comments direct from the test drivers. Enjoy.

This week we bring you an extra special edition of IL Track Tested: Cheap Car Shootout. The 2009 Hyundai Accent GS hatchback ($9,970 base price) and 2009 Nissan Versa 1.6 sedan ($9,990 base price) are the cheapest new cars currently sold in the U.S.

OK, they would be if we had a Versa 1.6 Base. Our test car is the slightly nicer Versa 1.6 ($10,990), which has air-conditioning. (We didn't have any control over that; Nissan apparently doesn't want stinky journalists driving around in a hot, swampy car.) Add $95 for floor mats and a $675 destination charge, and the Accent hatch ends up at $10,740. Our Versa 1.6 has optional ABS ($250) and floor mats ($155), bringing the total to $12,090 with destination.

Price differences aside, this Accent and Versa represent the low end of personal transportation in the U.S. And although you're not going find anything resembling quickness, agility or, well, fun-to-driveness this side of $15,000 (unless you want a used car under $15K), driving either of these cars is a survivable experience. We took them to our test track and put them through all our instrumented tests. Follow the jump to see how they did.

Continue reading IL Track Tested: 2009 Hyundai Accent GS vs. 2009 Nissan Versa 1.6.

Categories: Hatchbacks,Hyundai,Nissan,Sedans