Nismo for Oz next year

Nissan’s Nismo high-performance road car brand is on track to be launched in Australia next year.

The timing was revealed to motoring.com.au by Nismo President Shoichi Miyatani at Fuji Speedway in Japan yesterday.

“That is something we are looking at,” Miyatani said. “For Australia, hopefully next year.”

Miyatani also confirmed an Altima Nismo as a potential future model because of its use as the basis of Nissan’s attack on the V8 Supercars championship. The race cars carry Nismo signage and the team receives technical assistance from Nismo.

“It is something we should investigate,” Miyatani said.

Nismo, which stands for Nissan Motorsport, is in the early stages of a dramatic expansion of its road car development capabilities and range.

By the time it launches in Australia, various Juke Nismo models, a 370Z Nismo and a GT-R Nismo, which will break cover at the Tokyo motor show next month, will be in production.

Miyatani said Williams was involved with suspension, ABS calibration and aerodynamic development for the GT-R Nismo.

However, under Nissan’s Power 88 mid-term business plan, which runs until March 2017, Nismo is expected to deliver one new road car per year.

One of those additions will be the next-generation GT-R, which Nissan Executive Vice-President and global product planning boss Andy Palmer told motoring.com.au Nismo had also been handed the responsibility for developing.

Miyatani said the local Nismo launch, which Nissan Australia has consistently denied having timing for, would still have to hit certain targets to get signed off.

“The volume, homologation – Australian homologation is very difficult – are the big hurdle for Australia.”

Other Nissan sources at Fuji indicated the Australian launch “will happen” in 2014.

Miyatani was reluctant to discuss just what models were in the pipeline for Nismo, but he did confirm some discussion had taken place about a hot version of the Altima mid-size sedan, which goes on sale in November priced from $29,990 and powered by 2.5- and 3.5-litre petrol engines.

While the main concern for enthusiasts might be the capabilities of such a big front-wheel drive car, Miyatani’s focus is on the business case.

“An Altima Nismo would make sense and that would be a request from the region,” he said. “But obviously we want the economies of scale. A few units just for Australia, say 100 units, doesn’t really work out.

“So in the case of the Altima, if we do something for the United States with the same car then we would think about expanding to Australia, even though left-hand drive and right-hand drive is something different. But in terms of Altima we need economies of scale so always we should probably think about USA and Australia combined.”

Pressed on a hot hatch rival for the likes of the Golf GTI with more performance than the tepid Pulsar SSS, Miyatani acknowledged some preliminary Nismo consideration.

“Currently it’s not really in the specific planning for that model, but we are now in the stage of identifying all the requests from the markets, what they want for the Nismo versions and we are trying to prioritise from our resources. So that may come up in our planning.”

However, media reports have said a Nismo version of a new Nissan small car being developed for European markets will include a Nismo version.

Miyatani made it clear one thing Nismo won’t do is develop stand-alone models, in the way Mercedes-Benz tuning shop AMG offers the SLS gullwing and will soon have a rival for the Porsche 911.

“That’s not in our scope,” he said. “Nismo is a sub-brand of Nissan, so the Nismo model line-up should not be separate to Nissan. Nismo should enhance and should contribute to the brand of Nissan.

“So we select from the Nissan future model line-ups which ones should have a Nismo version.”

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