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 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

 

Suzuki has piqued inter­est ever since the unveil­ing of the Kiza­shi con­cept back in 2007. After all, it’s not often we see a large car con­cept from the car­maker, known for it’s rally and motor­bike her­itage and a his­tory of com­pact (and very com­pe­tent) small cars.

The new Kiza­shi fol­lows some of the flow­ing lines we were shown with the Kiza­shi 2 con­cept, while clearly show­ing a refine­ment from the con­cept to an almost pro­duc­tion appear­ance. Gone are the daz­zling paint jobs, 4WD ride height, crossover sports wagon styling, and head­lights. Instead ver­sion 3 of the Kiza­shi rides on 21 inch, 9 spoke chrome wheels, sports a new, sharper head­light design, wider split grille, a more mus­cu­lar front end, and 350z style rear haunches becom­ing almost a 4 door sports car.

Along with the stun­ning styl­is­tic update come some juicy details. The new Kiza­shi will carry a 300HP ver­sion of the GM’s new DOHC 24-​​valve 3.6L V6, come with Suzuki’s advanced i-​​AWD sys­tem mated to a paddle-​​shifted 6 speed auto­matic trans­mis­sion and will com­fort­ably seat 5 persons.

It’s one of the most solid close-​​to-​​production con­cepts we’ve seen and Suzuki claims we will see pro­duc­tion of the Kiza­shi in some form in 2010, with con­struc­tion planned to be at Suzuki’s new Sagara plant in Japan. Here’s to see­ing Suzuki build this, and since we’re wish­ing, we might as well throw in a wish for the X-​​HEAD too.

Kiza­shi 3 Concept:

 

Today Nis­san Aus­tralia announced that the new Nis­san GT-​​R will make its Aus­tralian debut, with the JDM model on dis­play at this years Mel­bourne Motor Show. No infor­ma­tion on the Aus­tralian spec GT-​​R, or any vari­ants of the GT-​​R, is avail­able at this time.