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:

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:

Just damn sexy, the Nis­san GT-​​R

Finally, after the heartache, tears, and edge of the seat antic­i­pa­tion, the Nis­san GT-​​R pic­tures have hit the blo­gos­phere like noth­ing else. Feast your eyes on Nissan’s lat­est foray into the Super­car mar­ket. Sport­ing the all new 3.8L twin turbo VR38VETT pow­er­house, the new GT-​​R will whisk you from 0–100 in 3.5s or less, and do the quar­ter in a very healthy 11.7seconds. The Corvette and 911 now have some seri­ous com­pe­ti­tion from Japan; and who knows what the Japan­ese tun­ing houses, or just enthu­si­asts, will extract from the new GT-​​R?

But enough. There’s one rea­son you’re here. Enjoy and know hap­pi­ness as only the GT-​​R can deliver.

The 2008 Nis­san GT-​​R