Pulsar SSS to get turbo power

The return of the Nissan Pulsar small car to the Australian market will be capped off by a turbocharged SSS hot hatch.

The existence of the much-rumoured performance model was confirmed to motoring.com.au by Nissan global product planning boss Andy Palmer at last week’s local launch of the Infiniti luxury brand.

“There will be a hot hatch,” Mr Palmer said.

The bad news for Nissan sports enthusiasts is they’ll have to wait into 2013 for the SSS to arrive, some time after the Pulsar sedan and hatch begin their roll-out post the Sydney motor show in October. Mr Palmer also confirmed the car would be tuned by Nissan’s high performance arm Nismo, with an emphasis on ride and handling rather than outright power from the boosted engine.

“Of course there is going to be a notch-up in performance, but it’s more about ride and handling,” he confirmed

Backing that up is Mr Palmer’s admission that the car won’t require a limited slip differential to handle its power output.

“Generally speaking, where we are trying to take Nismo is one of more outright ride and handling than hot-hot performance,” Mr Palmer explained. “The basis of that is most people don’t get anywhere near the limits of their motor car performance as it is, so if you can make the sports more accessible, have better ride and handling, that’s more where Nismo is going.

The Pulsar badge was controversially killed off by Nissan when it launched the underwhelming Tiida small car in 2005. But the SSS badge disappeared in 2000 with the replacement of the N15 Pulsar generation. The Pulsar badge still has 70 per cent name recognition in Australia, and the car is seen as a vital plank in Nissan’s ambition to become the biggest selling importer brand here.

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