Nissan's Altima fast start

Nissan isn’t expecting a ‘win on Sunday sell on Monday’ response to its foray into V8 Supercars with the Altima sedan, but it does expect racing will eventually contribute to a stronger sales performance for the car.

‘Eventually’ is the key word, remembering the racing version of the Altima debuts months before the production car that replaces the Maxima as Nissan Australia’s mid-size sedan entrant.

Indeed, the Holden VF Commodore and Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG also make their on-track debuts alongside the four-car Altima squad at this weekend’s Clipsal 500 months in advance of their road-car relations’ appearance in showrooms.

Racing in March when the road car won’t be seen until November means there is an opportunity for a “fast start” when it does launch, explains Ian Moreillon, Nissan Australia’s Executive General Manager of Sales and Fleet.

“We do expect that our decision to enter V8 Supercars will sell more examples of the (road-going version of the) car we are racing. There is an element of ‘fast start’ to this. We do expect the Nissan Motorsport entry will support the fast start and the establishment of the Altima in the Australian market.”

Mr Moreillon is a key player in Nissan’s decision to link with Kelly Racing and re-enter motorsport, exploiting V8Supercars’ change to Car of the Future regulations for 2013, opening the category up to brands other than Holden and Ford for the first time in 20 years.

Ironically, the exclusive Holden v Ford duopoly was created very much because Nissan’s GTR was an unstoppable force under the international Group A touring car rules of the era.

Mr Moreillon said going racing at a professional level in Australia again was the opportunity Nissan was looking for to boost its stocks in the passenger car market.

While a strong player in SUVs and light commercials, Nissan has dipped off the passenger car sales radar in recent years. But with the recent arrival of Micra mini, Almera light sedan, reborn Pulsar and – soon – the Altima, it is looking to become a contender once more.

With that comes the logical potential of more than 100,000 sales per annum and a shot at becoming Australia’s number one vehicle importer, overtaking key rivals Mazda and Hyundai in the process.

“We used to have a strong passenger car range a long way back,” said Mr Moreillon.

“But in recent years, I’ll be honest, our image in passenger cars is not that strong … and nowhere near where we needed to be to achieve the results that we want looking forward.

“So this was an opportunity for us to add a strong injection into that.”

Having the cars is one thing, but making people aware of them is another issue. And lifting their image from dowdy to exciting and enticing is another challenge again. And that’s where going V8 Supercar racing can help.

“It puts Nissan heritage and DNA on display and allows the public to engage back into us, and that’s what we want,” explained Mr Moreillon.

“We want them to be wearing the Nissan jackets, wearing the Nissan caps and barracking for Nissan Motorsport cars out on the track. It just engages the public back to the Nissan brand and that is why we are doing it.”

But will the fans make the link between a race car that is a rear-wheel drive V8 and road car that is front-wheel drive with the choice of V6 and four-cylinder engines?

At least, argues Moreillon, the Altima racer is powered by a modified Nissan production engine (the VK56DE) rather than the pure race engines found under other V8 Supercar bonnets, while other technology resonates too.

“Regardless of the way the (race) car is set up from a driver’s perspective the reality is that the technology being used is not all foreign to Nissan; transaxle technology is in GTR, alloy engine with quad cams no pushrods is very much us; the shape of the car, the look of the car will be the road-going appearance.

“So we think we will have a very high DNA in our race car. Yes there will be some differences, but there will certainly be no less than many others.”

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