THE TIME FOR SPECULATION IS ENDED and the Honda CR-​​Z is now offi­cially a pro­duc­tion vehicle.

Com­bin­ing and updat­ing the look and feel of the dearly departed CR-​​X with hybrid tech­nol­ogy, and adding a dash of the Honda Insight, the new CR-​​Z is expected to do well as buy­ers look for hybrid tech­nol­ogy in sportier look­ing models.

Quick specs:

- 1.5 litre V-​​Tec 4cylinder with IMA (Inte­grated Motor Assist) hybrid-​​electric sys­tem, 122HP@6000rpm, 128lb-​​ft (123 on Auto mod­els) of torque
— CVT auto or 6 speed man­ual
— 3 dri­ving modes, Econ, Sport, Nor­mal
— CR-​​Z and CR-​​Z EX trims
— 6 speaker MP3/​USB stereo on the CR-​​Z, 60-​​Watt AM/​FM/​CD pre­mium audio sys­tem with seven speak­ers includ­ing sub­woofer, Blue­tooth® Hands­FreeLink®, per­fo­rated leather-​​wrapped steer­ing wheel, and HID head­lights on the CR-​​Z EX
— ABS and EBD as standard.

2011 Honda CR-​​Z Offi­cial

 

Press Release

Pro­duc­tion Ver­sion of 2011 Honda CR-​​Z Sport Hybrid Coupe Makes Offi­cial Debut

THE NEW SUBARU IMPREZA WRX STI R205 (Road Sport 205) is expected to con­tinue the tra­di­tions of lim­ited edi­tion high per­for­mance set by the ultra-​​rare R203 and R204 editions.

The New Sub­aru Impreza WRX STI R205…limited to 400 only

Splat­tered with STi badg­ing and high qual­ity touches thtough­out, the new R205 comes with a brand new exclu­sive tur­bocharger, sports exhaust sys­tem, STi tuned dampers and coil springs, 18″ alu­minium wheels,  exclu­sive grille and quar­ter panel upgrades, and retuned ECU.

The engine upgrades take the R205’s power to a very strong 325HP and 317.9 lb-​​ft of torque, with Brembo 6-​​pot breaks up front and 4-​​pot in the rear bring­ing the car to a quick, firm stop.

But don’t get to excited, avail­abil­ity for the R205 is cur­rently lim­ited 400 units in the JDM (that means Japan) only, and like pre­vi­ous incar­naitons, is not expected to land in the Euro­pean, US or Aus­tralian mar­kets (out­side of grey imports).

[Ed: Your move, Mitsubishi.]

Sub­aru Impreza WRX STi R205

 

BASED ON THE NISSAN QAZANA, the Nis­san Juke is set to be unveiled at the upcom­ing Geneva Motor Show.

The Nis­san “Juke”

Clearly tak­ing on the cues of the quirky (that’s being diplo­matic) Qazana, the Dakar inspired Juke tones down the theme with slightly less com­i­cal wheel arches, but appears to retain the over­sized fog­lights and coupe-​​ish styling. Not much else is known, though full details will be released on Feb 10.

The car prob­a­bly won’t make it to North Amer­i­can or Aus­tralian mar­kets and will be pro­duced in the UK, no doubt aimed at the youth(and young at heart/​ just plain bizarre) market.

[Ed: I think Juke is a mis­pelling of Joke.]

PRESS RELEASE

7 Jan­u­ary 2010

JUKE: NISSAN’S NEW SMALL CROSSOVER

* Sales to begin in Autumn for Europe
* Extend­ing the Crossover phi­los­o­phy to the small car seg­ment
* Nissan’s fourth Crossover in Europe – rein­forc­ing Crossover lead­er­ship
* Man­u­fac­tured in UK

One month before its global media unveil on Feb­ru­ary 10th, Nis­san today con­firms the name of its forth­com­ing small Crossover. The Nis­san Juke will go on sale from Octo­ber, fol­low­ing its global pub­lic pre­mière at Geneva Motor Show in March.

The Nis­san Juke will inject some much-​​needed dynamism into the small car seg­ment, offer­ing Euro­pean car-​​buyers an alter­na­tive to the tra­di­tional, unin­spir­ing small hatch­back. As the fourth Crossover in Nissan’s Euro­pean range, “Juke” rein­forces the brand’s pio­neer­ing Crossover lead­er­ship in Europe.

The car was inspired by the Qazana con­cept car that received such a warm recep­tion at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show, and will fit into the Nis­san range between the Note com­pact fam­ily car and the Qashqai crossover.

Nissan’s cus­tomer research iden­ti­fied a large pro­por­tion of Euro­pean small and com­pact car buy­ers whose needs are not met by what they per­ceive to be unin­spir­ing and uno­rig­i­nal options avail­able to them where copy­cat hatch­backs dominate.

The Nis­san Juke has been designed and devel­oped to give cus­tomers an alter­na­tive to the tra­di­tional small hatch­back in Europe. We know that there are a lot of cus­tomers that are look­ing for a car which com­bines strik­ing design, agile han­dling and dri­ving plea­sure, user friendly tech­nol­ogy but not at the expense of prac­ti­cal­ity and con­ve­nience. These unique attrib­utes will allow Juke to occupy a unique cor­ner of the Euro­pean mar­ket,” said Simon Thomas, Nissan’s Euro­pean Senior Vice Pres­i­dent for Sales and Marketing.

“Nis­san caught the mood of the Euro­pean car-​​buying pub­lic with Qashqai crossover and we’ve worked hard to study the mar­ket in the same way for Juke to be sure we meet the needs of Euro­pean cus­tomers. We’re con­fi­dent that Juke will bring a new gen­er­a­tion of cus­tomers to Nis­san, in the same way that Qashqai did. Our phi­los­o­phy of chal­leng­ing con­ven­tions with Qashqai has been a huge suc­cess. We’ve just reached the 500,000 land­mark and we’re apply­ing many of the lessons learned from Qashqai to Juke. We’re con­fi­dent we’ll have another suc­cess on our hands,” added Simon Thomas.

Juke will be man­u­fac­tured along­side the Qashqai, Qashqai+2 and Note at Nissan’s state-​​of-​​the-​​art man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­ity in Sun­der­land, Great Britain.

With the intro­duc­tion of Murano in the US in 2003, the Crossover con­cept was intro­duced to con­sumers who were look­ing for a vehi­cle that com­bined the dynamic design and han­dling char­ac­ter­is­tics of a pas­sen­ger car, but with the added ben­e­fit of all-​​wheel drive trac­tion and the improved vis­i­bil­ity of a raised seat­ing posi­tion, but with­out the boxy shape of an SUV.

In Europe, the intro­duc­tion in 2007 of Nissan’s Qashqai her­alded the main­stream intro­duc­tion of the Crossover con­cept for the first time, pro­vid­ing an alter­na­tive to the tra­di­tional C-​​Segment offer­ing. In just over two-​​and-​​a-​​half years, and with a half-​​a-​​million buy­ers in Europe, cus­tomer feed­back shows they love its com­bi­na­tion of under­stated, but sophis­ti­cated design which com­bines the lower body robust­ness of an SUV, but the upper body pro­file of a pas­sen­ger car. Such has been demand for Qashqai that pro­duc­tion was increased at the plant in Sun­der­land, UK, to meet sup­ply. The Qashqai con­cept was fol­lowed by the intro­duc­tion of the stretched wheel­base ver­sion, the Qashqai+2, offer­ing extra inte­rior space allow­ing the inclu­sion of a third row of fold­ing seats to meet the needs of larger active fam­i­lies who need extra space or accommodation.

Details of forth­com­ing refresh­ments to the Qashqai were released ear­lier in December.

Full details of Juke will be released on 10th Feb­ru­ary 2010.

NISSAN are set to show a total of 9 cars at the Tokyo Autos­a­lon, includ­ing a new ver­sion of the mighty GT-​​R called the NISMO Club Sports package.

A pic of the Club Sports pack­age from the new minisite

Spec­i­fi­ca­tions of exactly what goes into the Club Sports Pack­age are thin on the ground, but expect a sus­pen­sion upgrade, new wheels, aerodynamic/​minor body upgrades, ECU changes and the awe­some NISMO Data Log­ger Kit.

The Data Log­ger Kit enables dri­vers to down­load the abun­dant per­for­mance data from the GT-​​R to their com­put­ers via a USB cable in detail, and appears to be a NISMO only option specif­i­cally for the Club Sports Package.

Nis­san will com­ple­ment the GT-​​R with a NISMO tuned and dressed 370z, the Roox High­way Urban Selec­tion con­cept, some Autech tuned Rider series vans,  a sports-​​oriented Sky­line coupe and sedan pack­age, and the 2008 Super GT XANAVI GT-​​R.

PRESS RELEASE

Nis­san to show­case 9 excit­ing mod­els at Tokyo Auto Salon

YOKOHAMA (Jan­u­ary 6, 2010) — Nis­san Motor Co., Ltd., together with AUTECH Japan and Nis­san Motor­sports Inter­na­tional Co. Ltd. will present 9 excit­ing mod­els equipped with the lat­est cus­tom and after-​​market parts in the upcom­ing Tokyo Auto Salon 2010 with NAPAC (Japan Car Parts and After­mar­ket Pro­mo­tion Asso­ci­a­tion), to be held from Jan­u­ary 15–17, 2010 at Makuhari Messe.
Tokyo Auto Salon

Nis­san will show­case its trans­porter and hos­pi­tal­ity cars used dur­ing it’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the domes­tic rac­ing series, recre­at­ing the excit­ing atmos­phere of the race cir­cuit. Included in this dis­play is Nissan’s range of stan­dard road cars styl­ized with the lat­est gen­uine aero body-​​kits that com­pli­ments the vehi­cles pure form. Autech will show its exper­tise in cus­tom cars with its fun and relax­ing Rider Series while NISMO will be pre­sent­ing its NISMO Club Sports Pack­age Cus­tom, the 2010 Nis­san GT-​​R equipped with the newly-​​developed “NISMO Data Log­ger Kit” and the XANAVI NISMO GT-​​R race­car that com­peted in the 2008 SUPER GT series.

High­lights of the exhibit include:

NISSAN area
Roox High­way Star Urban Selec­tion
A dis­tinc­tive, styl­ishly fin­ished pre­mium model based on the Roox, a light vehi­cle launched for sale in Decem­ber, equipped with third-​​party cus­tom parts such as an advanced HDD nav­i­ga­tion sys­tem, light­ing com­po­nents with cus­tom exte­rior, and styl­ized cabin interior.

Sky­line Sporty Package-​​equipped car
This minor mod­i­fi­ca­tion to the Sky­line Sedan announced on Jan­u­ary 6 raises the vehi­cle to a whole new level as a sports car. The model’s pack­age includes a sporty aero body-​​kit, a sports muf­fler, and high-​​performance suspension.

Sky­line Coupe Sporty Package-​​equipped car
Exhib­ited dur­ing the 2008 Tokyo Auto Salon as a con­cept, this cus­tom car has an aggres­sively designed aero-​​body kit that give out a sporty feel. It is now avail­able to the public.

Autech Japan area
Rider Series
Autech Japan takes its Rider Series of cus­tom cars, known for its punchy aero­form coat­ing and emblem­atic front grill design, to a new level and incor­po­rates the lat­est HDD nav­i­ga­tion sys­tem into it.

• ‘Ser­ena Rider Plus Navi HDD’
• ‘Cube Rider Plus Navi HDD’
• ‘Note Rider Plus Navi HDD’

NISMO area
Nis­san GT-​​R 2010 Model: Fea­tur­ing the NISMO Club Sports Pack­age
The “NISMO Club Sports Pack­age” is the fusion of Nis­san GT-​​R and NISMO tech­nolo­gies — a pack­age boast­ing a high level of sports per­for­mance. The Nis­san GT-​​R 2010 model also includes the newly devel­oped “NISMO Data Log­ger Kit”, which makes it pos­si­ble for the dri­ver to down­load their dri­ving data via USB and view it on a com­puter. With this data log­ger kit, NISMO pro­vides a new dri­ving plea­sure in which the dri­ver has a full com­ple­ment of options to ana­lyze dri­ving data acquired at the dri­ving circuit.

XANAVI NISMO GT-​​R (2008 SUPER GT GT500 class: Dri­vers’ Cham­pi­onship win­ning car)
Pre­sent­ing the car that Satoshi Motoyama /​ Benoît Tre­luyer used to win three races (includ­ing two vic­to­ries in a row) in the 2008 SUPER GT. This rac­ing car took home the series’ cham­pi­onship in its debut year.

FAIRLADY Z Ver­sion NISMO
Con­tin­u­ing in the spirit of the pre­vi­ous Z33 model Fair­lady Z, this model builds onto the Fair­lady Z’s high level of dri­ving per­for­mance with added fun and sporty functionality.

NISMO will also have the “Kids & Ladies Ride Event”, where par­tic­i­pants can expe­ri­ence what it’s like to be inside a rac­ing car, and the “Pit­work Sim­u­la­tion”, where NISMO mechan­ics will be per­form­ing real tyre changes and other techniques.

NISSAN/​NISMO col­lec­tion booth
Nis­san offi­cial mer­chan­dise, under the Fair­lady Z, Nis­san GT-​​R and NISMO motor­sport range are avail­able. Lim­ited edi­tions (996 pcs.) of the 1/​64 scale model of the “XANAVI NISMO GT-​​R (#23, the 2008 SUPER GT Championship-​​winning machine) will also be on sale at this year’s event.

NISSAN Cus­tomize Web­site URL http://www.nissan.co.jp/EVENT/CUSTOMIZE/

Prob­a­bly my most favourite episode from Sea­son 11,  the punch­line comes at the end. It’s telling where the GT-​​R places on the board, bear­ing in mind that this car weighs the bet­ter part of 1.6 tonne, and com­pares to say the ultra-​​light Atom.