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We’ve also got a brand new design com­ing shortly and a few long awaited suprises!

Porsche is claim­ing, after inter­nally test­ing the Nis­san GTR on the ‘Ring, that the car could not come within 25 sec­onds of April’s acclaimed time of 7 mins 29s.

Prod­uct Chief August Achleit­ner for the 911 team claims ’”This won­der car with 7:29 could not have been a reg­u­lar series pro­duc­tion car” and that  “For us, it’s not clear how this time is pos­si­ble. What we can imag­ine with this Nis­san is they used other tyres.” — mean­ing semi-​​slick tyres.

Achleit­ner said his team bought and tested a brand new Nis­san GTR with new tyres, and achieved a time of 7:54, behind the 911 turbo at 7:38 and GT2 at 7:34. The open­ing shot at Nissan’s per­for­mance car cred­i­bil­ity will no doubt cre­ate a response from fans and the com­pany, and is being hailed around the world as a case of ‘sour grapes’ for Porsche, who’s 911 con­tender retails for dou­ble the cost of a new GTR.

[Source: Cars­guide AU]

The Nis­san GTR

 

The new Sport­back and Sport­back Ral­liart have debuted online prior to the Paris Motor­show in a series of stun­ning images.

Aimed squarely at the pop­u­lar hatch­back and sedan Imprezas, the base Sport­back will come in four cylin­der 1.5L, 1.8L or 2.0L tur­bod­iesel mod­els, with the Sport­back Ral­liart reciev­ing a 2.0L, 177kw/​321nM tur­bocharged MIVEC four.

The Evo­lu­tion X’s AWD sys­tem, Twin Clutch SST and Active Cen­tre Dif­fer­en­tial round out the Sportback’s impres­sive list of features.

[Source: Net­CarShow ]

2009 Mit­subishi Lancer Sport­back Ralliart:

 

2009 Mit­subishi Lancer Sportback

 

The Japan­ese tun­ing scene lost a father and founder on Sat­ur­day with Hideki Tan­abe of Amuse (Amuse Power-​​House) fame pass­ing away. A mas­ter of the Japan­ese tun­ing scene, Tan­abe will be sorely missed by fans and dri­vers across the world, and will be remem­bered for rais­ing the bar on absolutely top notch work to another level of supreme qual­ity, work­man­ship and dedication.

It’s busi­ness as usual at Amuse, and the ultra high qual­ity parts and ser­vice that Tan­abe embod­ied will continue.

Related: Please read this heart­felt trib­ute from NAGTROC, I can­not say it bet­ter myself.

As spec­u­lated pre­vi­ously, the mys­tery Mit­subishi teaser images are actu­ally of the upcom­ing 2009 Mit­subishi Colt. The new Colt shares styling cues clearly poached from the new Lancer.

Both the front and rear of the Colt have been exten­sively over­hauled, to suit the aggres­sive new snout. The new car comes in both three and five door forms, with an almost micro-​​van like rear end to increase capacity.

Intended to go head to head with the likes of Toyota’s Yaris and Honda’s Fit/​Jazz, the new Mit­subishi can be optioned with fuel sip­ping 1.1L to 1.5L 4 cylin­der petrol engines, and a 1.5L DI-​​D diesel.

2009 Mit­subishi Colt Teasers