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Nissan GT-R convertible offered in three flavors from NCE

Newport Convertible Engineering, the Southern California company that can't keep its top on, has revealed on its website that it is now producing three different droptop versions of the Nissan GT-R Convertible. It's just another page in its work with high-end offerings like the new Range Rover and the Jaguar XJ. NCE owner Al Zadeh tells Autoblog that the superfast speedster came about during a trip to Abu Dhabi, when clients of his that collectively owned ten GT-Rs said they wanted him to engineer a convertible. They didn't want to see pictures, though, "They wanted to touch it and see it," he said.
So he built a convertible with a traditional, unadorned soft tonneau cover (the white one in our gallery) and another with hard tonneau cover fitted with roll hoops and a low-rise dual cowl (the blue one). When the clients saw it, "They said they wanted something more glamorous," Zadeh said. So he came up with the black version above with a hard tonneau cover and can't-miss-it cowling that, frankly, looks pretty good to us in that color and with those wheels.
Clients satisfied, the order books have opened for other GT-R owners around the world. The most restrained version runs $29,500 to build, the other two retail for $49,000, and all of them require a donor GT-R and eight weeks to finish. With facilities in SoCal, Europe and the Middle East, you won't even have to send your Godzilla too far away if this is the look you've decided it just has to have.

Watch a Nissan GT-R make up 17 spots on the first lap

By now, enthusiasts should be plenty used to seeing the Nissan GT-R passing "lesser" vehicles on the road - and let's face it, that accounts for a good 99-percent of other cars out there. But what about on the racetrack, where GT racers are all homologated to the same general specifications and tuned with an eye toward fairer competition?
Turns out Godzilla is just as formidable an adversary on the track, as demonstrated by this latest video. Shot from inside the cabin of British driver Alex Buncombe's GT3 racer during the Blancpain Endurance Series race at Monza, the video shows what happens (or at least happened this time) when a well-driven GT-R is relegated to the back of the grid - even when that grid is populated by the likes of Porsche, Aston Martin, Lamborghini and McLaren.
Buncombe and his teammates in the Nissan GT Academy Team RJN ultimately finished the race in 13th place, but what's remarkable is that they started way back in 32nd, making up 17 places on the first lap alone. Scope out the frenetic action in the video below.

Nissan union wants French to stop meddling with Renault alliance

Nissan is getting some unexpected reinforcements in its ongoing battle with the French government over its involvement in Renault. Its Japanese union, which has traditionally been a very hands-off entity, issued harsh criticism for the French government's attempts to assert control over its alliance partner. According to Bloomberg, this is the first time in 16 years that Nissan's union has weighed on the company's affairs, and it's stating its position on the matter in no uncertain terms. The union called France's attempt at scoring double voting rights within Renault "unacceptable and against the intended spirit of the Alliance." "We support the numerous attempts of Nissan to engage with the French government to find a balanced and constructive solution that will benefit and strengthen the Alliance," the union said in a statement obtained by Reuters. It's unclear what impact the union speaking out will have on the current power struggle between Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn (shown above) and the French government, but we doubt it'll contribute to any quicker of a conclusion. Related Video: News Source: Reuters, BloombergImage Credit: Itsuo Inouye / AP Government/Legal Nissan Renault France renault-nissan alliance