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Posted
Nov 20 2008, 07:33 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with no comments
Last night, I attended the Nissan 370Z launch party at J-Lounge in Downtown LA. Very fun, but after scoping out the scene, I decided I didn't really want to lug around my camera equipment in such a crowded atmosphere - especially since it was open bar. Drunk people spilling drinks on camera stuff isn't the best idea! However, prior to that, I did manage to snap a few photos at the LA Auto Show. There were tons of new cars and concepts, but I'll keep this short and sweet, and just post...
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Posted
Nov 20 2008, 05:38 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 3 comment(s)
As part of Nissan month, we wanted to take a look back at the lineage of some of the popular models that Nissan has produced over the years. With the recent unveiling of the 370Z, I'd say the Fairlady and Z models are a perfect place to start. While many will trace the roots of the Z back to the S30 in the early '70s, you can't really talk about the Z without going back to the original Fairlady Roadsters like the 1968 SRL311 Fairlady 2000 pictured above. The Mazda MX5 gets a lot of credit for being the Japanese version of the classic European roadster, but Nissan was doing it almost 30 years before Mazda introduced the MX5!...
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Posted
Nov 19 2008, 10:00 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 14 comment(s)
Nissan has just debuted its redesigned second generation Cube in Japan, and though that might not like sound like a big deal to people outside of Japan, the new Cube will also be sold in the US starting next year. It will join the Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, and Scion xB as another entry in the fuel efficient compact wagon segment. The car retains all the funky features of the original Cube and should be similar in size to the original Scion xB....
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Posted
Nov 18 2008, 03:30 PM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 35 comment(s)
Thanks to my fellow Speedhunters Andy and Rod we can see the R35's that were present during the Sema show. I will make another User Ranking post out of this because the first one was a success. We saw that the muscle cars were very popular at Sema, but I'm not really into those kind of cars so I'm glad I can show you these Nissan's. I felt that Sema was a bit too early to really make the R35 stand out. There is not a whole lot available except carbon lips, exhausts and a bodykit made...
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Posted
Nov 18 2008, 11:01 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 14 comment(s)
Time for a little more Nissan goodness from the archive as I post up a few of the track-tuned Skyline GT-R's I've spotted at Tsukuba Circuit over the past year. There is no place where a GT-R is more at home than running around a track like Tsukuba. It is surely one of the best places in Japan to see tuned GT-R's at their best. The car has stood the test of time and even the oldest BNR32 GT-R models are still found in abundance at Japan's racing circuits. Nearly seven years after they disappeared from the market, the original RB26-powered GT-R is still one of the quintessential Japanese performance cars....
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Posted
Nov 13 2008, 04:34 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 13 comment(s)
It seems these days, when people think of Nissans, they automatically think of S13s, S14s, 350z, and such. However, I just wanted to remind everyone that in the mid to late 1990s, when FF Honda drag racing was the rage, the Nissan Sentra SE-R was one of the most popular Nissans to modify. It was Nissan's answer to the heavy hitting front wheel drive cars, like the Civic and Integra... especially with the popularity of SR20DET engines and turbo upgrades! I test drove a newer Nissan Sentra SE-R...
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Posted
Nov 12 2008, 09:23 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 21 comment(s)
4-door sedans are favored by drifters all around the world, and they are especially big here in Japan where Toyota's JZX cars are favorites among both pro an grassroots drifters. Nissan's primary contribution to the drift world might be the Silvia and 180SX, but they also offer plenty of turbocharged four door sedans that can be bought on the cheap and built into some pretty radical drift machines. I wanted to take a quick look at a few of Nissan's coolest four-door drift cars here. For example, how about the R32 Skyline sedan pictured above as it drifts the wet course at Honjo Circuit?...
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Posted
Nov 12 2008, 12:08 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 17 comment(s)
Nissan month is November... and as I pack up my gear for tomorrow's shoot at Buttonwillow Raceway's Super Street Superlap Battle, I just can't help but think of Ebisu Circuit, one of my favorite racetracks that I've ever experienced. Anyway, looking back through photos on one of my hard drives, I thought I'd post up a photo that I snapped in 2005. This photo was a view of the pit area at Big X, the first fusion of drifting with other extreme sports, like freestyle motorcross,...
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Posted
Nov 11 2008, 06:10 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 4 comment(s)
On our trip to the UK earlier this year, I came face to face with a big pink monster. Get any ideas of fuzzy dinosaurs out of your head - I'm talking about a pink R33 Skyline drag monster from Sumo Power, in the UK. This car is very well known in the UK - it's gotten features inked from all the big magazines out there; this R33 has been stirring up quite a bit of attention from its performance numbers and overall impact! The vehicle is a 1994 Nissan Skyline GTR, which was imported from Japan...
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Posted
Nov 11 2008, 09:40 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 20 comment(s)
When I was told that Nissan was delivering a bright red R35 GTR to my office, I was more than excited! It wasn't my first time experiencing an R35 - I had already seen the car at the 2008 Tokyo Auto Salon , and even accompanied my friend, Nobushige Kumakubo of Team Orange , to the Nissan dealer in Fukushima Japan when he decided to buy one this past January. In fact, Kumakubo generously gave me the opportunity to test out his new GTR at speed when I returned to Japan this past August; I couldn't...
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Posted
Nov 11 2008, 02:30 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 10 comment(s)
Here's an interesting piece of news for Nissan Month. The rumorists at Japan's Best Car Magazine are now speculating that Nissan may release an ultra limited production Le Mans edition of the R35 GT-R. With roots going back to the old school LM R33's, the new car will supposedly push out out somewhere around 600hp and include a number of other upgrades from the "standard" GT-R. In addition to the street car, an actual competition car is also said to be in the works for Le Mans. If this rumor turns out to be true, the car will be even faster than the upcoming V-spec model. Of course you can't take these rumors all too seriously, but I don't think it would be too surprising considering what Nissan has already done with the GT-R....
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Posted
Nov 10 2008, 04:12 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 5 comment(s)
I was fortunate enough to be invited to a special Nissan media event featuring the all new Nissan Maxima at the luxuriously redeveloped Thompson Hotel in Beverly Hills. To be very honest, I was kind of skeptical when I heard Nissan marketing it as a revival of their “4 door Sportscar” at first, but that skepticism was very short lived. After an all day drive through a mixture of freeways and winding mountain roads on the way to Ojai, CA, I was able to thoroughly test out all 290 horsepower...
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Posted
Nov 10 2008, 11:27 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 9 comment(s)
The eventful 2008 season of Super GT is now in the books. The final race of the year was held yesterday at Fuji Speedway under and despite the not-so unusual cloudy weather, things were looking bright for the Nissan GT-R teams that were aiming to finish off their season of dominance by taking the GT500 drivers championship. From the photos, it looks like the stands at Fuji were packed. According to Super GT, 47,100 race fans braved the cold and cloudy weather to watch the final race of 2008....
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Posted
Nov 10 2008, 03:27 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 9 comment(s)
Yesterday I spent the afternoon in Tokyo, and while I was there I figured since it was Nissan month on Speedhunters that it would be a good time to head over to Ginza and have a look at the car gallery at Nissan's corporate headquarters. After taking the short walk from the Higashi Ginza subway station, we arrived at the Nissan hon-sha building to find this gleaming red R35 GT-R parked on the street outside the place. Kind of a cool way to begin the visit don't you think?...
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Posted
Nov 06 2008, 06:40 PM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 36 comment(s)
Because it is Nissan month I thought it would be a good idea to let you choose which Nissan you think is the best car in the 2008 D1GP season. I'm not interested in which car has the most top 3 finishes or the car with the most horsepower. I just want to know which one is your personal favorite. The car in the opening picture has seen a lot of transformations and belongs to crowd favorite Ken Nomura. Of course it's my favorite car because I have driven his Street legal version for a few years...
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Posted
Nov 06 2008, 10:49 AM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 12 comment(s)
I'm an avid reader of multiple restoration and build up threads on several different forums on the World wide web. I really like it when a user is willing to share his precious metal and documents his build. This Hakosuka you see was bought in Japan and imported to Sydney Australia it is being restored by one of the moderators on the Japanese Nostalgic Car forum. The way he documents his build is really impressive and on top of that he does almost everything himself. You can log on to his thread...
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Posted
Nov 05 2008, 12:37 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 6 comment(s)
Toyota and Lexus are known for making some great luxury sedans, but Nissan is right up there with them. Check out this Nissan Fuga 450GT (Infiniti M45 elsewhere) sitting low on a set of 20" BBS LM wheels in Osaka. In stock form these cars are already pretty cool, and with just a few minor mods they make for some of the coolest luxury sedans anywhere. Personally, I really dig this simpler style as opposed to the more aggressive VIP sedans. I have noticed that BBS LM's have been getting REALLY popular from the VIP crowd here in Japan and it's pretty easy to see why when looking at cars like this....
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Posted
Nov 05 2008, 05:00 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 23 comment(s)
Throughout this month I'm going to be digging through my archive of old photos and posting up some of my favorite Nissan shots from various events and track days here in Japan. First up, I wanted to look at some the Nissan Silvia and 180SX grip/time attack cars that I have seen at Tsukuba Circuit over the past several months. When it comes to time attack cars, the AWD GT-R, Evo, Impreza, and the FR S2000 and FD3S come to mind, but the S-chassis also has very large following among grip racers in Japan....
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Posted
Nov 03 2008, 03:09 PM
by
John Brooks
with 15 comment(s)
They say that racing improves the breed, they also say that win on Sunday, sell on Monday. Both are clichés but contain more than a grain of truth. And that truth provides the motivation for the Driftworks Company to showcase the products available at their on line store. Of course having a bit of fun along the way also plays a part too, as Phil Morrison admitted to me. Driftworks was set up nearly 5 years ago and provides a top quality parts services to all levels of the drifting community...
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Posted
Nov 03 2008, 10:02 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 15 comment(s)
Over the course of the next month you are going to be bombarded with Nissan material from all corners of the globe, and seeing as how I'm based in Japan, I figured I'd do a quick little "tribute" of sorts to Nissans in their homeland. From the earliest models to the newest Fairlady Z and GT-R, fixed up Nissans are all over the place here. Whether you are talking about a circuit-tuned Nissan March compact car, a VIP Nissan President, a time attack GT-R, or a 180SX drift car, you...
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