Nissan to Fight Audi, Porsche in the 2015 Le Mans 24 Hours with GT-R LM Nismo [w/Videos]

The Le Mans 24 Hours is slowly but surely gaining more traction with automakers than Formula 1, with Nissan being the latest major company to join the competition.

Nissan Officially Confirms New 2015 Murano for NY Auto Show [w/Video]

The rumors about Nissan picking next month's 2014 New York Auto Show as the event of choice for the world premiere of the new generation Murano crossover were true, with the Japanese firm confirming the debut today through a short statement and the release of a darkened teaser image and video.

Nissan Juke NISMO RS Shows Off its 215 HP and Extra Trinkets in LA [w/Video]

The new Nissan Juke NISMO RS, which just debuted at the Los Angeles motor show, is an interesting proposition. It’s based on the regular Juke NISMO, but it offers more power, improved handling and some fancy Recaro seats.

Its 1.6-liter turbocharged engine now churns out 215 hp, which is 8 hp more than before, unequally divided among the four wheels most of the time, with a prominent front-wheel drive bias under normal driving conditions.

Still, cars ordered with manual six-speed gearboxes can also be fitted with a limited-slip differential to help get the power down out of corners. Reviews of the regular NISMO say it’s not necessarily a bad thing to drive, so the advent of improved chassis rigidity and bigger brakes can only serve to make it better.

Nissan gives this special RS model a unique interior treatment, with carbon fiber (look) trim, a red-and-black color theme featuring mixes of leather and suede.

Then we have the Recaro seats which completely transform the interior ambiance, or at least they seem to do so in the photos which you can check out in the gallery below.

By Andrei Nedelea

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Wraps Come Off Nissan’s BladeGlider Concept in Tokyo, will be Produced

Nissan’s BladeGlider holds the promise of challenging the established thinking on how sporty cars should handle and brake, by adopting an unusual layout with a front end that’s noticeably narrower than the rear – similar to the DeltaWing racecar, but with wider front track and more car-like proportions.

It can also reportedly convey excellent feelings of what goes on underneath the driver – loss of grip is predictable, noticeable when it arrives and apparently very easy to correct.

This is in part achieved thanks to reportedly excellent handling brought about by the unusual weight distribution which only exerts 30 percent of the vehicles weight onto the front axle; the “added benefit is improved steering in terms of effort, feel and precision.”

Being an all-electric vehicle, the BladeGlider is good at accelerating too, and since 70 percent of the weight is on the back, there’s always ample traction, even with the instant torque nature of the powertrain. Nissan doesn’t say how brisk it actually is, but they do make it clear that it’s very good at launching from a standstill.

The overarching idea is for it to glide over the road with minimal effort and drag, while being fun to be in at the same time. It all sounds good to us, but how will it actually work in practice?

The gallery below won’t answer that question, but you will get a fairly detailed look at it. And, oh, did we mention that Nissan has plans to produce it?

Nissan Livens Up Tokyo Salon with Small, Lightweight IDx Freeflow Concept Duo

You don’t have to be an automotive historian to spot the resemblance between Nissan’s IDx Freeflow concept and the iconic KGC10 coupe (external photo link) of the early 1970s, albeit with a modern and diminutive twist, plus influences from other (Datsun) two-doors from the firm’s sporty past.

They represent everything an enthusiast is looking for when starting out with a small budget: retro-inspired looks that actually hark back to an actual cult car, rear-wheel drive fun, compact dimensions (4.1 meters or 161.4 inches in length) and low fuel bills that always count too.

Nissan brought the IDx Freeflow to the Tokyo motor show in two flavors: with and without NISMO bits bolted on. Either would make for a fantastic little sports car, even if they did tone down the look in production form and kept the silly idea of only giving it a CVT gearbox, though we strongly wished they reconsidered on the latter (if they want to be taken seriously).

The NISMO variant shown would obviously be the more desirable of the two, with its fender flares that make it a full 10 cm (4 inches) wider, big wheels and side-exiting exhausts. Its power plant would also be of greater capacity and power than that of the non-NISMO variant which would get its power from a sub 1.5-liter engine, whereas the racier one would get a direct-injected turbocharged 1.6-liter.

In other words, if this is Nissan’s way of asking if they should make these cars, then my answer is a definite yes!

By Andrei Nedelea

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