The Con­cept RA has appeared in Detroit look­ing like a cross between the new Lancer EVO and (per­haps) the lat­est gen­er­a­tion USDM Mit­subishi Eclipse, or even an Audi TT.

The strictly con­cept only (Sorry, guys and girls) Con­cept RA sports a 2.2 litre, DOHC 16-​​valve 150kw/​201HP/​420nm high out­put, clean burn diesel engine, as part of Mitsubishi’s new drive towards eco-​​friendly per­for­mance sports cars.

In order to achieve low con­sump­tion while not sac­ri­fic­ing per­for­mance means the Con­cept RA fea­tures Mitsubishi’s pro­pri­etary MIVEC vari­able valve con­trol tech­nol­ogy, an all alu­minum space frame, vari­able diffuser/​variable geom­e­try tur­bocharger, peizo­elec­tric injec­tor sys­tem and also sports some impact resis­tant, recy­clable plas­tic resin pan­els as part of it’s construction.

Envi­ron­men­tal fea­tures include a new cat­alytic con­verter sys­tem that com­bines a diesel oxi­da­tion cat­a­lyst (DOC), NOx trap cat­a­lyst (NTC) and diesel par­tic­u­late fil­ter (DPF) in addi­tion to the highly effi­cient 2.2 litre clean burn­ing diesel.

Of course, the Con­cept RA sports Full­time 4WD, Twin Clutch SST Trans­mis­sion, and the new S-​​AWC (Super-​​All Wheel Con­trol) most notably seen on the new EVO. As men­tioned before on IJ, S-​​AWC is a com­bi­na­tion of exist­ing tech­nolo­gies, Active Cen­ter Dif­fer­en­tial, Active Yaw Con­trol, ABS and Active Sta­bil­ity Control.

Unfor­tu­nately though, all this is to be shelved as the car is designed purely as a con­cept, and won’t chal­lenge either Honda’s offer­ing in the new CRZ (CRX) or Toyota’s rumored new ‘AE86’.

The new Nis­san GT-R’s finally landed at Tokyo!

Here’s a run down of some final specifications:

• VR38VETT (3.8L Twin Turbo) dump­ing out 353KW (473HP, 480PS) and 588 Nm (433 lb-​​ft)
• 6 speed, Borg Warner six-​​plate dual-​​clutch transmission
• On sale Decem­ber 6 2007 in Japan
• Brembo 6-​​piston brakes in front, 4-​​piston in rear
• Bil­stein (DampTronic) suspension
• Black Edi­tion is listed as 4WD — expected, and now confirmed.

But per­haps the most amaz­ing thing isn’t the release of this amaz­ing new car, per­haps it’s a lit­tle tid­bit given almost as an aside over at Auto­blog. They claim “Mr. Ghosn com­mit­ted to Nis­san field­ing GT-​​Rs in next year’s Super GT Cham­pi­onship” !
The GT-​​R is com­ing back to motor­sports proper, and this means the Godzilla is well and truly back in the game.

Also: Don’t for­get to view Autoblog’s pics of the GT-​​R LIVE at Tokyo!

Orig­i­nal Press Release:

At this years Frank­furt Motor­show, Honda hasn’t been rest­ing on it’s lau­rels. Instead they’ve given us a beau­ti­ful con­cept tourer (or wagon, depends on what your idea of a wagon is). It’s clear Honda have their sights set on giv­ing us back a solid Honda wagon along the lines of the Accord Wagon, not seen in the US and Aus­tralia since the fifth-​​generation Accord — although wagon pro­duc­tion con­tin­ues in Euro­pean and Japan­ese markets.

Spec­i­fi­ca­tions remain rel­a­tively unchanged from the Accord Euro, with the the 2.0– and 2.4-litre gas engines, although Honda’s 2.2-litre diesel will be an option when it goes into pro­duc­tion. The Tourer con­cept also sports 4 doors, a longer track and width to improve han­dling and cargo space.

Honda Accord Tourer Con­cept Pics: