The Nissan NISMO GT-R GT3-spec race car made a successful debut at the Blancpain Endurance Series at Magny-Cours over the weekend, finishing eight in a field of 35 cars for JR Motorsport and proving that the car has enough bite to back up its bark.
Built to GT3 race specs and jointly developed by NISMO and JRM, the NISMO GT-R carries the same 3.8-liter VR38DETT V6 engine as that of the production model with an output of 530 horsepower and 451 lb/ft of torque.
The NISMO GT-R GT3, which was driven by David Brabham and Richard Westbrook, capped off its impressive performance by covering over 440 kilometers in just a little over three hours of action, showing that it can run with the established models of the GT3 class in just its first racing action. With development only beginning a year ago, the Nissan NISMO GT-R GT3’s performance at Magny-Cours is a sign of great things to come for both the car and the JR Motorsport team.
“We came to Magny-Cours with a plan, as our main goal was to test the reliability of the car in an endurance event and to assess how it compared in a competitive environment - and that’s exactly what we’ve done," team principal Andy Barnes said.
"To achieve such a solid all-round performance has taken months of hard work by NISMO and JRM. The outcome of this weekend really underlines the true potential of the car and keeps our development program and pre-launch plans firmly on track.”
The future’s looking bright for the newest race car in the GT3 grid. Both NISMO and JRM are confident that with an impressive car in tow, the team will be remain competitive in future GT3-class races.
Rumors about a successor for the Nissan 200SX started circulating back in 2008, but now the car is coming out of the woodwork to pay a little competitive visit to the seemingly untouchable Mazda MX-5.
Nissan’s plan to launch 52 new cars by 2016 has carved a path towards production for the 200SX, which may be seen as early as 2013. Prices will start from about £20,000 - or about $33,000 at the current exchange rates.
The new 200SX will be built on a new mid-size platform supplied by Daimler that will also be used for the 370Z replacement and the next GT-R. There aren’t any details on the powertrain that will be used for the future 200SX, but rumors hint towards a tuned version of the Leaf’s drivetrain or a hybrid set-up as a couple of options. Other rumors suggest that an all-electric rear-wheel-drive version may be the way to go. These rumors stem from the Nissan ESFLOW concept, which debuted at the Geneva Motor Show in March and ignited the fires about a future hybrid Nissan sportscar.
We’ve heard this rumor for a few years now, but nothing seemed to get any traction apart from the cursory whispers here and there. Well, if you take Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn’s recent word for more than just a grain of salt, it does open the door a little in seeing a GT-R version for Infiniti down the road.
Now, like we said, this isn’t the first merry-go-round we’ve ridden with regards to a proposed Infiniti GT-R and Ghosn stopped short of saying that there will be, in fact, a car that’s going to be built. But as the glass-half-full optimists that we are, the words that came out of the mouth Nissan’s CEO during a recent interview with Car Magazine were like music to our ears.
During the interview, Ghosn told Car that it would be easy to build an Infiniti GT-R because the "technologies developed for Nissan are all in place and is at the disposal of its sister company, Infiniti."
"The idea makes sense," he said. "The technology is here; the platform is here. It’s a great car, the GT-R. Is it a project now? No. But I don’t want to give you the impression we’ll never do that. But I don’t want you to think that it’s coming in the next two to three years either."
When most people just see a Nissan GT-R, they are in awe of this seminal feat of engineering. This car offers super car performance and practicality that perhaps makes it the best daily driver on the road today. Yet the Chicago based tuning company, AMS Performance, looked at the GT-R and set themselves a monumental engineering challenge. Cue dramatic music; they set out to build the fastest GT-R . To make this daunting challenge even harder the engineers from AMS kept the GT-R’s stock interior and amenities like air conditioning.
To accomplish the task, they endowed a GTR with 1,500 horsepower. That’s 300 more horsepower than a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. This car is like showing up to an 8th grade science class with a Polaris missile while everybody else has a stomp rocket.
So did these engineers from Chicago accomplish their lofty goal? The answer is a resounding yes. This car posted the fastest GT-R quarter mile in history, posting a time of 8.97 second a astonishing 169 miles an hour.
Check out the video of this record breaking quarter mile run!
Nissan is rumored to be working on an affordable sports car, as a rival to the Mazda MX-5. The catch? Nissan’s sports car will feature an electric or plug-in hybrid drivetrain.
The Mazda MX-5 Miata is the car that usually comes up in discussion when automakers set their sights on developing an affordable sports car. Since its debut in 1989, the Mazda MX-5 has become the standard for world-class handling in a package to fit anyone’s budget. Some would accuse the MX-5 of being underpowered, but when it comes to the ability to carve corners with razor-like precision, the MX-5 has few rivals, and none in its price range.
If new rumors surrounding Nissan are correct, that’s about to change. As part of its plan to launch 52 new cars over the next five years, Nissan is rumored to be working on an affordable rear-drive sports car. It will be built on a midsize platform purchased from Daimler, that ultimately will be used on the next generation 370Z, GT-R, and Infiniti G as well.
