Autoblog

Toyo has tapped a handful of tuners to produce six SEMA creations to highlight its range of track-ready and dirt-friendly tires. Unfortunately, we've already seen the 800 hp, Bentley Continental-based Tetsu GTR, but joining that rolling abomination to tasteless consumption are a handful of rides that better represent what SEMA is all about.

To begin with, Bulletproof Automotive is trotting out a customer-owned Nissan GT-R, wearing limited edition (and GT-R specific) BBS LM-DBK-P wheels wrapped in Toyo's 20-inch Proxes R888 tires. An Amuse Super Tough Titanium exhaust, Endless monoblock six-piston front and rear brakes and a smattering of carbon fiber aerodynamic parts round out this track- and show-friendly package.

Vivid Racing will be joined by several other firms bringing tuned Mitsubishi Evolution Xs to the show, but Vivid should stand out with its Porsche GT3 RS paint job, 18x10-inch AME Tracer 02 wheels and 650 hp on tap. We'll be on hand in a few weeks to find out how Vivid went about freeing those extra 350 ponies.

Additionally, an unnamed sixth vehicle will be accompanied by a 2009 Toyota Tundra CrewMax SR5 built by Two Brothers Custom Trucks, along with Choppin' Block Custom Fab's four-door 1931 Studebaker Model 54, riding on a custom air suspension, Centerline Smoothie wheels and powered by a Chevy 350 fed by a trio of two-barrel carburetors.

Hit the jump for all the details and stay tuned for our SEMA coverage beginning the first week of November.

As expected, Nissan has responded to Porsche's claims that the GT-R isn't quite as fast as they say it is. In fact, representatives for the German automaker suggested that Nissan may have used racing slicks to achieve the 7:29:03 lap time of the Nürburgring. Says Nissan, "The final word from us is that it was done on absolutely standard tires which are available to customers in the showroom. They're not trick tires – absolutely standard tires, normal road tires."

Despite the allegations, Nissan is remaining calm about the issue, adding that the fast time was set by its racing driver, Tochio Suzuki, and achieved using the GT-R's optional Dunlop tires. Could it be that Porsche purchased a model with the slightly slower Bridgestones? Maybe, but can having the right tires could account for a 25-second lap time difference? In any case, Nissan's taking the high-road, falling short of suggesting that Porsche's drivers are slow. Thanks for the tip, Ed!

[Source: The Nissan GT-R Owners Club]

Nissan wants to reshape the way we make our way around Gotham, and the Nuvu concept is a means to that greener end. Built atop a new platform measuring around three meters long and featuring an electric drivetrain, Nissan claims that the 2+1 concept is the perfect city car for a better tomorrow.

While the bulbous roofline, squat overhangs and oh-so-cheeky leaf-shaped solar panels (leading into a "trunk" to supply power to the batteries) may be a bit over the top, expect to see some of the styling cues make their way to the revised Note in the next decade, along with Nissan's production EV that's supposedly hitting Japan and the U.S. in 2010.

Make the jump for the press release.

When Nissan launched the 350Z in '02, it was working hard to reinvent itself and the new Z was clearly its halo car in the U.S. market. Now that that the revival has come and gone, expect the new 370Z to take on a new tack as a harder edged vehicle. In fact, Nissan plans to take on Porsche, the most classic of all sportscar manufacturers, with its newest coupe. Equipped with a larger 335-hp 3.7-liter V6 engine and having gone on a serious diet, possibly shedding as much as 200 lbs, the new Z will definitely have the cojones to keep up with its foes, including the Cayman, and its shorter wheelbase and wider track should conspire to make it quite the handler as well. We'll get our first official look at the new son-of-Godzilla at the LA Auto Show, shorty after which the Nissan 370Z should show up in Japanese dealerships with U.S. delivery at a later date. Hopefully, not too much later.

[Source: Automotive News - sub. req'd]

We were pretty excited when we saw the first shots of a transforming Nissan GT-R toy in 1:24 scale, but after seeing the final product, it looks as if the supercar makes a pretty poor Transformer. If only it morphed into Godzilla, maybe that would be an improvement. Take a look for yourself at the pictures in our gallery in both regular and transformed versions. While in its hidden alt-car-mode, the 'bot has quite a few ill-placed seams, and when in native robot form the GT-R looks like it has insect wings. Still, it's pretty cool to see a Transformer made from the R35, and we wish we could see it do its transforming in the upcoming movie, but not in this form. Convoy is what they call Optimus Prime in Japan, and to our eyes, Prime can only be a Big Rig. Thanks for the tip, 94 Taurus owner!


[Source: Transformers News]

Sour grapes or legitimate complaint? That's the question we're left pondering after reading that Porsche believes Nissan must have cheated to record its 7:29:03 lap time of the famed Nürburgring race circuit. Porsche claims that it had been suspicious of the Nissan's lap times, so it acquired a U.S.-spec GT-R for testing back-to-back with its own 911 Turbo and GT2. The result? The mighty Godzilla was toppled by the Teutonic German duo, with the GT-R posting times a good 25-seconds slower than Nissan's claim.

How can Porsche explain the discrepancy? "This wonder car with 7:29 could not have been a regular series production car. For us, it's not clear how this time is possible. What we can imagine with this Nissan is they used other tires," says August Achleitner, the man in charge of the 911 program. There is footage of the GT-R lapping the 'Ring at high speed, but it's taken from inside the car where the tires cannot be seen.

Considering the fact that Nissan saw fit to issue a press release commemorating the car's fast-lap, we doubt this is something that will be taken lightly. There's a big can 'o worms here, and Porsche's in the corner holding the opener.


[Source: Carsguide]

Many thanks to Autoblog reader Aaron, who appears to have been in the presence of printed materials pertaining to the 2010 Nissan Cube, which is set to be unveiled next month at the LA Auto Show. Aaron captured the moment with his camera phone, and thus, we have what may be the first unofficial official look at the U.S.-market Cube's design. Or it could be something else entirely, but it sure doesn't look that way. Up front, the new headlamps and grille form a thin line above the front bumper, giving the boxy little dude a face we expect to see start talking at any given moment. Follow the jump for more analysis, and check out the scans in the gallery below.


[Source: Aaron]

Volvo has its locusts, Nissan has its bees. With 300-degree vision via compound eyes and instantaneous reflexes, bees don't run into things the way cars do. Nissan wants to halve the rate of car crashes by 2015, versus the company's 1995 tally, and is using bees to come up with a new generation of crash-avoidance systems that will be able to respond to obstacles in ways superior to humans.

Whether bees or locusts, the key to making the technology work has yet to be created: allowing the car to act on information instantly, without complex processing. Information from the bees' eyes doesn't get kicked around their noggins first, it goes straight to the wings which immediately react to keep them out of trouble. More simply: they don't think about what they need to do -- they just do it. When bees do that, they end up unhurt. When humans do that, they end up on the evening news.

To start down that road, Nissan's made a Biomimetic Car Robot Drive (BR23C) that knows how to act like your annoying sibling: it goes around you if it thinks you're in the way. Yet, even when the basic technology can be transferred to vehicles, there is still the issue of dimensions: the BR23C can rotate in any direction to sidestep barriers, but your car has a narrower range of options. Until the guy next to you can also respond instantly -- or we're all driving Nissans and Volvos -- we'll have to see how the technology shakes out.

[Source: Nissan]

Those wacky kids in Japan can do all kinds of things with their cell phones that those of us in the U.S. can't. Thanks to Nissan, Sharp Corporation, and NTT DOCOMO, the Japanese mobile communications company, they can now add car control to the list of possible cell phone features.

The phone uses the two-way communication of Nissan's Intelligent Key System, the same thing you use on your G37. For now, it can only lock and unlock the car and start and stop the engine, but if it takes off we imagine they'll add other options later. This is about convenience, not necessarily about sense -- if your phone gets stolen, that makes your car one more thing that the villains can abscond with.

The phone won't go on sale commercially until 2009, but will be demoed at the CEATEC exhibition in Japan later this month. You can read the full press release is after the jump, and get ready to overhear this in Japanese: "I called the wrong number and my car just drove off..."

[Source: NTT DOCOMO]

A Florida man named Scott Weires has canceled the order for his long-awaited Nissan GT-R. Why? It's not that he was disappointed in the car's performance credentials, far from it. The problem is that the GT-R is equipped with a 'black box', similar in theory to the kind found on airplanes to help determine what went wrong in case of an accident or breakdown. By the end of 2012, car buyers won't have a choice as to whether their new car is equipped with a 'black box,' or Electronic Data Recorder -- they will be federally mandated to carry one. These devices track information that could be useful to the manufacturer in determining exactly what is, or has been, going on with a car. There are a few worries, though, that warranty claims could be denied if the automaker, Nissan in this case, deems that the car was being raced or abused in some way or by police or lawyers to determine culpability. Nissan's GT-R carries an on-board recorder that keeps track of the past few day's worth of driving and cannot be disabled. In the case of Scott Weires, an attorney no less, that was enough to look elsewhere. Would it be for you?


[Source: AutoWeek]