Wednesday 2nd November 2005

Nismo to grow

Nismo (Nissan Motorsports International Co Ltd) was founded in 1984 primarily to develop and maintain Nissan's racing cars in formulas as diverse as Group C prototypes (the R390), Japan's Touring Car championship (won by the R32 GT-R for four consecutive years), and the Dakar Rallye Raid.

However, it also develops aftermarket parts for Nissan's road cars and sells complete hand-built models to discerning Nissan customers.

Despite having no involvement with the GT-R road car development programme, Nismo will offer tuning options when the GT-R hits the market, and by the end of 2008 we can expect to see complete cars with more power and revised suspension, along the lines of the 350Z S-Tune and the fire-breathing, Ferrari-eating R34 GT-R Z-Tune. Simultaneously Nismo will be working on the competition version of the GT-R for Japanese GT racing.

Nismo employs around 200 people in Japan, but recently a small team of eight has moved over to Nissan Europe in Paris to begin to push the brand in the rest of the world. It's a small division that's used to developing racing cars with huge budgets (which explains why the S-Tune 350Z costs around £50K), but Nissan is keen to build Nismo into a kind of M-Division or AMG.

It already sells packages for the Micra, 350Z, R34 GT-R and even the X-Trail in Japan, but the products are not easily homologated for the UK and Europe. The next generation of its work will be. Expect to see a Nismo-developed GT-R at evo Car of the Year 2008.

Article from: evo