We already know that the Nissan GT-R has been updated for next year but previously details have been scarce. We only know the suspension had been updated, a diffuser with cooling ducts had been added (previously only on the SpecV) and some reduction in airflow resistance to better engine response at low to mid-range engine speeds.

Nissan Europe’s press release has the changes in better detail:

• Front spring and damper rates have been changed to improve ride comfort, and for more accurate control of suspension movement for better responsiveness.
• The rear suspension radius rod bushings have been made stiffer to give improved feel and responsiveness during cornering.
• Computer logic that controls torque distribution between the front and rear axles have been changed to reduce rear axle binding that occurs when differential fluids are cold.
• Transmission logic has been altered to give a later downshift from 6th gear to 5th gear when being driven in automatic mode. A more aggressive downshift has been applied for changing from 4 to 3 and 3 to 2.
• NACA cooling ducts added to the rear diffuser which provides better airflow to cool the exhaust and transmission (mounted at rear).
• Front transmission mount has been stiffened and this reduces vibration through the driveline under high-load conditions.
• EBD logic has been moved to apply more brake power rearwards to improve braking stability under dry conditions.
• Rear brake cross spring design has been improved to reduce noise.
• An improved air deflector design increases cooling to the rear brakes, which is probably needed now that the EBD has increased rear brake bias.
• CO2 emissions have dropped by 3g/km – now at 295g/km.
• Better insulation for the rear seats, improving cabin NVH.
• Double layer clearcoat for the bumpers.
• Gun metallic finish surrounds for the speedometer and RPM meter.
• New audio-navi system with 40GB HDD storage (9.3GB for music), 3D navigation with Point of Interest supplied by Michelin (restaurants, etc), A2DP bluetooth audio streaming, voice-controlled menu operation and higher resolution 7 inch screen (4 times better resolution).

Here’s an example of automotive technology doing more than just working on cars and benefiting our every lives instead. Nissan’s Scratch Shield paint which it developed together with the University of Tokyo and Advanced Softmaterials Inc will be licensed to NTT DoCoMo Inc to be used on mobile phones in Japan. The Scratch Shield paint has self-healing capabilities (for fine scratches) and can restore itself overnight or up to a week’s time with more severe cases. The paint is also more scratch-resistant than normal paint in the first place. It should do its job on a mobile phone very very well, considering alot of us just lump phones together in the same pocket as our car keys, and the result can be quite a mess of scratches.

Renault-Nissan has announced that it will work with an Indian company called Bajaj Auto to produce the world’s cheapest car, even cheaper than the Tata Nano. An agreement was signed and the partnership is set to introduce the new low-cost vehicle in 2012.

Under the agreement, Bajaj will handle the design, engineering as well as the manufacturing while Renault-Nissan will focus on marketing, branding and the sale of parts. CEO Carlos Ghosn revealed that the cost of the car will be lower any car made in India today, pointing to a price tag that would be cheaper than the Rs 1 lakh carried by the Nano.

With India to become the primary market and exports to emerging markets to be made later, the new vehicle is expected to feature a mileage that is better than 20 kilometers per liter. The car will be built in India and will target India’s emerging middle class. Both companies actually announced a partnership last year but apparently there were some disagreements, which have now been resolved. Pictured above is the Bajaj Lite concept that was shown in 2008.

Source

Renault is reviving the Gordini brand and also revealed that it will launch the Twingo Gordini Renault Sport that is based on the Renault Twingo Renault Sport 133 on 25th November in Paris. The automaker will also roll out a Clio Gordini RS a couple of months later. So what is this ‘Gordini’ brand in the first place?

To answer that question we will have to go back to 1964 when Amedee Gordini developed a rally car based on the Renault 8. The R8 Gordini finished 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th in the 1964 Tour of Corsica rally and two years later, the Gordini Cup one-make race series was established.

Renault now plans to add Gordini variants into the Renault Sport range. The Gordini Renault Sport cars will be treated to an elegant finish, making it slightly more premium than the standard Renault Sport. The automaker did not reveal further details but judging from the classic Gordini, Renault may offer a light blue body finish with white racing stripes.

Click the images above for larger hi-res view

These are the first few product photos of the new Volvo S60 officially released by the Volvo PR team as a preview to a full-fledged unveiling soon. The car will make its public debut at the Geneva Motor Show 2010 in early March next year, and production will begin early summer 2010 at Volvo’s Belgian plant.

No other details or specifications have been revealed other than the fact that you can specify an optional feature called Pedestrian Detection that can detect pedestrians in front of the car and brake automatically if the driver doesn’t react in time.

Looking pretty good I must say, though I would prefer if the front end were to be a little sharper. It’s a little soft now, especially with the big soft ‘eyes’ (headlamps) and all. What do you think, do you like it?

Six-cylinder engines are pretty rare in the world of bikes, obviously due to packaging issues. If installed inline, it would either be too wide or too long to fit a bike frame properly. So we see V6 and boxer formats for 6 cylinders in bikes more often than an inline installation. Honda has made both boxer-6 and inline-6 bike engines before, installed in the Goldwing and the CBX respectively.

Though the very popular 320i here has a four-pot, BMW cars are very much well-known for their silky smooth inline-6 engines. BMW is now trying to bring inline-6 into bikes in a big way, as according to them it is the packaging issues that have prevented the cylinder format from really going anywhere when installed in a bike, whether in a production model or in motorcycle racing.

BMW claims that the BMW Motorrad Concept 6’s inline-6 engine is approximately 10cm slimmer than any production inline-6 engine coming before it, and it is only a bit wider than a large-capacity inline-4 engine with conventional technology. BMW has used a slightly over-square bore to stroke ratio measurement with a relatively long stroke and small gaps between cylinders. Electrical ancillaries and drive components are situated behind the crank in the open space above the transmission in order to minimize width.

The engine’s construction uses lightweight materials in as many areas as possible in order to keep the engine relatively light. Some weight-reduction techniques include hollow-drilled camshafts and light conrods. The engine’s inline-6 configuration does not require the use of a balance shaft. The block uses dry sump lubrication, helping lower the engine installation position. Like inline-4 installed in the BMW K 1300 series, the engine is tilted forward by 55 degrees for a lower center of gravity and better weight balance. The tilt angle also allows extra space for the aerodynamically-positioned intake manifold.

And now for some numbers. The inline-6 has 1.6 liters of displacement and can produce 130Nm of torque from just 2,000rpm. It revs up to nearly 9,000rpm. Look after the jump for photos of the Concept 6.

Click here to read the rest of BMW Motorrad Concept 6 motorcycle features 1.6 liter straight-six engine

The 2009 Formula 1 season ended at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and it was Jenson Button who managed to clinch the Driver’s Championship two weeks earlier at the Brazilian Grand Prix. His team Brawn GP also made headlines as it also went home with the Constructor’s title.

The entire Formula 1 fraternity is now focusing on the 2010 season. Some familiar faces won’t be around next year like BMW and Toyota and possibly Renault, but there will be new faces. These include teams like USGPE, Manor, Campos as well as Malaysia’s Lotus F1. We have more interesting news to share with you regarding the new team. The term “spygate” may just stick around but instead of McLaren and Ferrari, the term is being associated with Lotus F1 and Force India.

According to Force India, its former wind tunnel operator Aerolab which is owned by Fondtech (an aerodynamics specialist) has leaked vital aerodynamic data that belongs to the team to the newly established Lotus F1. Force India revealed that the front wing assembly on Lotus F1’s wind tunnel model looks similar to the one featured on Force India’s Formula 1 car.

The team also claims that the wind-tunnel tires on Lotus F1’s wind tunnel car have hand-writing that belongs to Force India’s staff. Lotus F1’s technical chief Mike Gascoyne who also served for Force India in the past denied the allegations. At the same time, Aerolab is taking legal actions against Force India but its not regarding the matter above. Instead, its because Force India did not fulfill its “obligations” over a previous three-year deal with Aerolab.

In another development, Kamui Kobayashi, who stunned the motoring fraternity with his excellent drives in Brazil and in Abu Dhabi for Toyota is rumored to join Lotus F1. He recently revealed to the press that if there are still options for a race seat and that he had to choose a team, he would choose Lotus F1. Kobayashi was the third driver for Toyota’s Formula 1 outfit and replaced injured Timo Glock for the final two races of the season.

He showed some ballsy driving moves in both races and even made a sensational pass on World Champion Jenson Button in Abu Dhabi. With Toyota’s withdrawal from the sport, the Japanese driver is now looking for a 2010 race seat. Talking about drivers, Fairuz Fauzy who has been linked with Lotus F1 ever since it was given the green light to join Formula 1 is very likely to become the team’s third or reserve driver. “Fairuz will be in the team probably as a reserve driver or a test driver. He has the talent but we don’t want him to ‘crash and burn’ in the race because of his inexperience,” revealed Mike Gascoyne.

Gascoyne told The Star, “Take (Fernando) Alonso for example. He was signed as a test driver and didn’t get a race seat until after three years with Renault and he went on to win trophies. This is exactly what we want with Fairuz, for him to have enough experience because racing in the Formula One is at a much higher level than he used to.”

Taking that into account, Kobayashi’s move to Lotus F1 as the team’s second driver makes more sense. It is also also a good move to retain Fauzy as a reserve driver until he has more experience under his belt. Lets learn from what happened to Alex Yoong’s drive for Minardi when he raced for the team in 2002. There is no indication who will take the remaining seat but fingers are pointing towards Jarno Trulli, who drove for Toyota along side Kobayashi.

Volkswagen Malaysia announced yesterday that VW Cars Sdn Bhd was no longer an authorised dealer of Volkswagen cars in Malaysia. This is some interesting news as VW Cars is one of the more prominent Volkswagen dealers in Malaysia, with showrooms in PJ and The Curve. A sister company of VW Cars is also the official dealer for Abt in Malaysia. They are part of the Cartrade group who used to be BMW dealers. I wonder what will happen to the bookings for the new Volkswagens (Scirocco, Passat CC, Golf GTI) made through their showrooms as they are sure to have a decent amount in hand. Hopefully if there is any kind of transition etc it will be smooth for customers.

It’s finally going to be here – the new F10 BMW 5-Series Sedan! BMW has released a teaser video of the new F10 and they say the F10’s debut is ‘about to take place’. A November 23rd (at 8pm CET timezone) unveiling date and time has been set, pretty timely for buyers looking at a mid-size luxury sedan in Malaysia as the W212 E-Class is about to be launched in Malaysia. So if you look at the F10 and decide you like what you see maybe you want to wait until it’s launched in Malaysia to compare the two.

The teaser video uses the kinetic sculpture (metal balls hanging from fine threads) at the BMW Museum to show us the silhouette of the car. Most people are expecting a scaled down version of the F10 5-Series with sportier rectangular kidney grilles rather than the large ones on the F01/F02 7-Series or even the 5-Series Gran Turismo.

Personally this is one of the more exciting car launches for me, as an old 5-Series owner I’m very interested to see how my E39’s ‘grandchild’ will look like, as personally I didn’t like the E60’s design very much though it drove like a dream. And of course after the F10 unveiling is over and done with we can look forward to the next generation F10 M5.

Look after the jump for a video of the kinetic sculpture teaser. You can also view some past posts on the F10 5-Series GT.

Related Posts:
F10 BMW 5-Series spyshot snapped conveniently next to a 5-Series GT for comparison
F10 BMW 5-Series Sedan Interior videotaped!

Click here to read the rest of New BMW 5-Series set for November 23rd debut

What’s happened here is actually quite common in the auto industry – a decent looking sketch ends up translated into a not very appealing production model.

These leaked set of next generation Nissan Micra/March photos were leaked from Dongfeng Nissan production lines as the Chinese JV prepares to assemble it in China. It’s expected to run a HR16DE and a 4-speed auto/5-speed manual combo in China, but there’s probably also the HR15DE and a CVT transmission to choose from for other market needs.