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:

 

Per­haps one of the most inter­est­ing rumors of the year has been MT’s rev­e­la­tions that high level Nis­san honcho’s are con­sid­er­ing pro­duc­ing a four door ver­sion of the Nis­san R35 GT-R.The car would appar­ently carry the orig­i­nal equip­ment on the stan­dard GT-​​R, the 480-​​HP V6 VR38DETT, FSG-​​style 6-​​speed auto clutch gear­box, and AWD. How­ever, con­sid­er­able revi­sions to the car body struc­ture in order to fit any decent seats in the rear would mean the car would be con­sid­er­ably more expen­sive, and of course, heav­ier than it’s already heavy brother.

What does this do to the GT-​​R name­sake? Does it dilute the sports coupe into another high pow­ered fam­ily car? It all depends on how much of a purist you are, and how good your knowl­edge of the GT-​​R is. The first GT-​​R — the 1969 PGC10 (later the KPGC10 coupe) Sky­line GT-​​R (known as the “Hako­suka”) — was orig­i­nally a four door car, not to men­tion the Autech and Nismo lim­ited edi­tion 4 door R33 Sky­line GT-R’s of the 90’s.

That said, the GT-​​R is so named to dis­tance itself from the old Sky­line moniker. As Nissan’s pre­mier flag­ship model, per­haps the 4door is bet­ter suited to Nissan’s pre­mium Infiniti brand.

Bring on the Infiniti M38TT. Yeah, we just made that up.

[Source: Motortrend]

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.

 

Accord­ing to Pres­tige Motor­sport, the new R35 GT-​​R can now be imported legally under SEVS!

How­ever, com­pli­ance is as far as 12 months away (2009), and prices are expected to exceed AU$100,000 for the new Nis­san super­car. Regard­less, this is a big fist in the eye of Nis­san Aus­tralia, as enthu­si­asts will now be able to grab the new car directly from the JDM with­out Nis­san Australia’s interference!

[Source: Pres­tige Motor­sport]

Totally awe­some. Watch the GT-​​R take the 997 to task around Tsukuba. All said and done, Nissan’s built great com­pe­ti­tion for the Euro’s with the new R35. Still, insane JDM car fan as I am, I would still take that sexy 997 for a drive. And maybe never come back