February 26, 2013 - Swadeology

Nissan Pumps Up The Volume On Nismo

This is awesome news. Nismo is about to go from being a small factory racing workshop more connected to fans through video games than real cars, to a global performance badge for Nissan’s sports cars.

I’m not a massive fan of Japanese cars, as you know, but I do have a special affinity for Nissan. I did all my early driving hours, aged 17, in a Datsun 180B. One of my best friends growing up in Melbourne

ended up with a Datsun 260Z. Of all the Japanese companies that put down roots in Australia back in the 1960s and 70’s, Nissan was the one with biggest sporting pretensions. Datsun 1600’s are still favoured by those looking to get into rallying and some of sell for big money.

More recently, Nissan have looked to spice things up in Australia by entering the enormously popular V8 Supercar series. This series is like Australia’s version of Nascar, but with corners. It’s been a Ford/Holden series since forever but this year Nissan and a privateer team using Mercedes Benzes will enter the fray. It’ll be the most interesting series in years.

Actually, Nissan has a pretty huge motorsports division.

I give Nissan huge kudos for their work in making themselves one of the interesting companies to come out of Japan. That they’re now going to make Nismo cars available as part of their regular range is a fantastic development for car fans in general. We need more variety and more interest in the automotive scene. It’s nice to see companies coming on board to provide it.

A 370Z Nismo and Juke Nismo will be the first cars offered. There will also be a Nismo GT-R, which is really going to shake things up in the performance car ranks, I think. The GT-R in regular guise made some huge waves a few years ago. This Nismo version is going to be fantastic.

The press release is below……

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Nissan Launches New Era for NISMO

Global Performance Road Car and Motorsport Brand

New Global Headquarters in Yokohama heralds new era for Nismo
Nismo to create a range of affordable performance Nissan models from small cars to flagship sports cars
Juke Nismo is the first, followed by new 370Z Nismo
New GT-R Nismo, the ultimate Nissan performance road car, announced
Nissan’s global motorsport program to be managed by Nismo

YOKOHAMA, Japan (Feb. 26, 2013) – Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. today kicked off a new era for Nismo, confirming it as Nissan’s exclusive global performance road car and motorsport brand and officially opening the new Nismo global headquarters and development center in Yokohama, Japan.

Nismo is already well-known to motorsports and performance car enthusiasts in Japan and to millions of global gaming enthusiasts. Now, Nismo is poised for accelerated global impact, enhancing Nissan’s reputation for innovation and excitement with a new line-up of sporty Nissan road cars.

In a special ceremony today, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn declared the new headquarters open and explained how Nismo will play a more prominent role for the company’s performance car and motorsport activities.

“Nismo will bring new excitement to the Nissan portfolio with a broader range of affordable and innovative performance models for more markets and more people,” said Mr. Ghosn. “Whether it’s a small car or a sports car, if it’s wearing the Nismo badge it offers something special – quality, functionality, and efficiency, with Nismo’s distinctive styling, sporty handling and dynamic performance capabilities.”

The first new Nissan road car to get the Nismo treatment, the Juke Nismo, is already on sale in Europe and Japan and launches in the U.S. in the second quarter of this year.

A new version of the 370Z Nismo for European markets is the next Nismo road car, which made its world debut earlier this month and builds on the platform of Nissan’s most popular and accessible sports car.

Nissan is promising a rapid pace of introduction of even more Nismo models, at least one model every year during the Nissan Power88 period, encompassing the breadth of the Nissan road car range. This will include the flagship of Nissan’s performance and technology, the GT-R.

“It would be unthinkable for us to develop a range of Nismo road cars without including the GT-R,” said Mr. Ghosn. “The standard road car is a global supercar and the GT-R’s performance on track reflects the passion and talents of the Nismo team. The GT-R Nismo will be special and I can’t wait to drive it.”

New home for NISMO

Nissan has invested in an entirely new facility for Nismo’s operations, redeveloping a former production site to give it the resources for expanding beyond motorsport engineering and expert involvement in NISMO road cars Nissan will be developing.

The new headquarters facility allows the Nismo team to be co-located in one place, bringing together the functional areas for Nismo’s key activities and technical and competition expertise under one roof.

The 180-strong team is now located inside Nissan’s Powertrain Engineering complex. The workshop, engine shop, rooms for fabrication, grinding and carbon composite processes are consolidated into the same floor space along with the parts warehouse. A new larger showroom allows up to eight vehicles to be displayed, while the retail area is now almost twice the size of the previous store in the Omori factory.

“This is a great move for Nismo as we can now shift gears to operate more efficiently and expand the brand globally,” explained Nismo President, Shoichi Miyatani.

“Nismo is a key element in Nissan’s future global road car and motorsports strategy and we will quickly establish it as Nissan’s exclusive performance brand,” added Mr. Miyatani. “This is the first time that all of our team has been located together, and the entire facility will become a hothouse of passion and performance.”

The NISMO spirit

At the heart of each new Nismo road car will be a consistent DNA focused on delivering quality, functionality, and efficiency in every day driving with Nismo’s distinctive styling, sporty handling and dynamic performance capabilities.

Nissan’s new range of Nismo performance road cars will be built on the same production lines as their standard counterparts, which combined with inspiration taken from decades of racing and tuning expertise means that the Nismo brand ensures fully integrated performance enhancements.

Every modification Nismo makes to a road car will be functional and targeted to improve on-road performance and presence.

The spirit of Nismo relies on its proud motorsport heritage and a maverick engineering philosophy. This spirit will be reflected in every new Nismo model with efficient performance, accessible and advanced technology, and bold, smart design, all of which embody Nissan’s philosophy of innovation that excites.

Connecting the virtual with the real

Nismo is known around the world by millions through the virtual world of driving simulation games. In fact, the first opportunity to drive a Nissan Juke Nismo was provided virtually, through the game Asphalt 7: Heat.

Now, at the same time as Nismo is moving from race track to road, it is also moving from the virtual world to the real world as, for the first time in many markets around the world, a range of affordable Nismo-badged cars will be available from Nissan dealers.

“For many would-be Nismo customers, one of the very few occasions to experience a Nismo performance road car has been through a game like Sony Computer Entertainment’s Gran Turismo® series,” said Simon Sproule, Nissan’s corporate vice president for Marketing and Communications. “Now we can bring them into the family of Nissan owners with an exciting, real Nismo car created by a dedicated and experienced team that is fully linked to the digital world and well aware of what these new customers are looking for in a performance road car.”

Performance for the road and track

The spirit and inspiration for Nismo started with a group of maverick Nissan engineers almost fifty years ago. In their efforts to boost car sales through racing success, they shoehorned a powerful engine into an

ordinary Nissan saloon to create the first of a legendary line of sporty road cars with the Nissan Skyline 2000GT.

What came next was a run of highly successful competition and performance road cars in Japan, culminating in the birth of Nismo itself in 1984.

With the digital generation, Nissan realised the power of the Nismo legend by working with game creators to create both real and virtual stars and expose a whole generation to the potential for tuning and winning in these cars. Last year alone, over 500 million virtual miles were driven in Nissan vehicles on Gran Turismo®5 for PlayStation®3.

Now, as Nismo accelerates to become a global performance car brand specializing in delivering affordable, exciting and innovative performance versions of Nissan cars, the lessons learned from almost half a century of racing can be applied consistently to give drivers a surprising and rewarding ownership experience.

NISMO Expands Role in Motorsport

Nismo’s new charter will also impact Nissan’s future motorsport activities, where it is expected to boldly enhance Nissan’s reputation for excitement and innovation.

Nismo is taking on global responsibility for managing Nissan’s motorsport program which includes top level competition in every region of the world.

“Nissan’s continued commitment to a variety of motorsports programs around the world from the Altima in the Australian V8 Supercars to Super GT in Japan, but we also intend to surprise people by exploring advanced forms of motorsport,” explained Mr. Miyatani. “Our experience a spirit of pushing the boundaries even further helps us to raise awareness of Nismo around the world, but more importantly it means we can transfer the lessons we learn into tangible benefits for our customers, whether for Nismo road cars, race cars or tuning parts.”

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Building Business – Got Tips?

Something non-car related…..

As most of you might know, Mrs Swade (otherwise known as PJ) is into painting. She’s a watercolour artist and while she’s dabbled in numerous styles over the years, she’s found an appreciative audience in recent times for her emu paintings. They’re bright and colourful and they usually achieve their aim of putting a smile on people’s faces.

PJ’s hoping to turn this hobby into a reliable part-time income so that she can cut back on her 9-to-5 day job and take things a little slower. Neither her nor I are business people, however, so I thought I might tap into the expertise of people reading this to see if you’ve got any experience to share.

What we’ve started so far:

Built the PJ Paintings website – that was the easy part, of course. Adding content is more laborious but she’s getting the hang of things.

Built the PJ Paintings Facebook page + advertising – We had a slow climb to 100 Likes, mostly from family and friends at first. It accelerated from 100 to 150. In the last week we’ve done some targeted Facebook advertising for just $5 a day and now have nearly 450 Likes after around 10 days of advertising.

Diversified into fine quality, limited edition prints – Why sell one painting when you can sell the print 100 times? We’ve sourced a great photographer/printer and will soon be marketing fine quality, limited edition prints in various sizes. The marketing hasn’t started for those yet, but we’ll get that underway once the Facebook advertising finishes at the end of the week.

Building the mailing list – it’s slow going, but a monthly email update goes out to a number of subscribers now. Moreover, you can also build a mailing list and manage emails by using dedicated and reliable software. If you have questions about this, you can get in touch with experts at simplelists.com (or a similar site). For a successful email marketing campaign, it seems necessary to formulate an effective and efficient plan, which generally includes all the necessary components.

The most crucial aspects of a strong marketing strategy usually include engaging and interactive content, a well-researched mailing list, and a service such as Postfix (if interested, look at this now for more info), which can prevent your mail from getting flagged as spam. Furthermore, to ensure the well-planned campaign is executed correctly, you can hire digital marketing experts.

Diversify into greeting cards – the paintings lend themselves nicely for use as greeting cards and the first proofs we got back from the printer were very encouraging. We just want to see what the next size up looks like. Once that’s sorted, we’ll have them ready to go in no time.

Added a store to the PJ Paintings website – It’s one thing to have all these products but you’ve also got to get them to market somehow. We’ve added a store to PJ’s website as a first step in doing this.

Signed up for our first major event – Agfest is a big agricultural show here in Tasmania held at the beginning of May each year. We’ve signed up for a stall and will be there in The Craft Shed selling as many prints and cards as we can. This will be our first event and we’ll use it to gauge the wider interest not just in the paintings, but for the whole event scene.

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That’s where we’re at right now.

Mrs. Swade will keep on doing new paintings, either from her own mind or on commission. Some of those paintings will be professionally photographed and used as limited-edition fine-quality prints, cards, or both. Maybe we both can look into various options available in specialty printing, like UV coating, aqueous coating, debossing and embossing, etc., to accomplish the finest quality of our prints and cards. Such information could be obtained online by exploring resources similar to Ballantine’s guide so that we can provide the best services to our customers.

Once we have all the products, we will have to market them and sell them.

Any hints or tips on how to do that? We have a few ideas in mind that are basically extensions of what we’re doing now, but any out-of-the-box suggestions based on your experience would be appreciated.

How to decide what product mix to take to Agfest?

How to get people to move from being visitors, to being shoppers?

Advice on pricing?

Anything else you can think of.

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Alfa Romeo Brera – New Contender

I’ve been considering what to pick up for our east-coast Australia driving trip later this year. How you get there is almost as important as where you go, right?

The latest thoughts, as documented in my 2013 Automotive Bucket List, were leaning towards a Porsche Boxster S. The early ones have reached the point of affordability and while it wouldn’t be the most practical vehicle for a 3,000+km road trip – it’s not exactly known for its luggage space – it would be one hell of a nice way to see the countryside.

I’d not considered the Alfa Romeo Brera for my bucket list and/or drive trip simply because I thought it would be too new and unaffordable. I should have known, however, that depreciation has already kicked in on this most beautiful of coupes and even the Q4 V6 models are now creeping into the sub-$30K arena.

For that money, you get the V6 version from 2006-7 with around 70,000kms or less on the clock. The V6 is GM’s high-feature V6 and therefore it’s not as pretty as Alfa’s own as used in the 156, GTV and others. It’s the same basic engine used in the Saab Turbo X and what it lacks in prettiness, it makes up for in grunt. The V6 is 3.2 litres but non-turbo, with Alfa heads, valves, direct injection and an Alfa ECU to make it a thoroughly different beast putting out around 260hp. That’s mated to a six-speed gearbox and a rear-biased four-wheel-drive system that can shove around 75% of the power either forward or back.

Equipment levels are high with all the airbags and electronic doo-dads of the time. The only thing that might be missing from a 2006-7 model would be USB music and maybe Bluetooth, both of which could be added aftermarket.

The BIG bonus is that the suggestion met with resounding approval here at home this evening. Mrs Swade was cautiously approving (as she does) but young Mr Swade was very positive indeed. He’d been receptive to the idea of the Boxster, but let’s just say he wasn’t jumping for joy. When I mentioned the Brera, he almost had to hide his mid-section in order to maintain his modesty (the Brera has that effect, you know).

The Alfa Romeo Brera isn’t known for its luggage space but compared the Boxster it’s as practical as a Ford Transit van. You get a real roof (with panoramic glass) to keep your small stuff in the back seat safe as well as a hatchback rear-end.

And then there’s the way it looks. Parental guidance recommended……

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It won’t be as dynamic to drive as a Boxster and it certainly won’t hold its value like a Boxster, but then it’s achingly beautiful to look at, quite unique on Australian roads and reportedly a very decent car to drive, too.

I don’t know what will happen but it’s definitely not a one-horse race anymore.

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