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Porsche wins the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans

The question going into this year's 24 Hours of Le Mans was whether or not the Porsche 919 Hybrid would be able to combine its qualifying pace with race reliability. After battling neck-and-neck with Audi's R18 for most of the race, the answer is a resounding yes. Not only did Porsche drivers climb the first two spots on the podium, they did so without any major mishaps on track. This win is the first overall trophy for Porsche since 1998. Audi previously won the last five races, and 13 of the last 15. Corvette also returned to the winner's circle, with the No. 64 C7.R taking winning the GTE Pro division. The victory is the first class win for Corvette since 2011. KCMG won the LMP2 class in ninth overall. With 45 minutes to go the No. 98 Aston Martin crashed out of first place in GTE Amateur, giving the class win to SMP Racing's Ferrari and second place to the Patrick Dempsey Racing Porsche 911 RSR. For the full list of official results, click here. The GTE Pro class proved to be just as exciting as the P1 class, with a four-way battle for first after four hours into the race. For most of the race, the battle at the top went back and forth between the two German manufacturers. An tire puncture in the No. 7 Audi gave up the lead to Porsche, and moments later a crash forced the No. 8 into the garage. But a three-minute replacement of the front and rear bodywork kept the Audi in contention. As the race wore into the night, Porsche maintained a slightly faster pace than Audi. Nick Tandy took the lead on Lap 253 early Sunday morning, and car No. 19 never gave up the top position. The win is the first for all three drivers of the No. 19 – Nico Hulkenberg, Earl Bamber, and Nick Tandy. A lap behind in second was the No. 17 Porsche. The Audis fought reliability problems late in the race but still finished third with the No. 7 R18. The GTE Pro class proved to be just as exciting as the P1 class, with a four-way battle for first after four hours into the race. As the Aston Martin cars dropped away, the lone Corvette Racing entry took over, followed by a charging AF Corse team Ferrari 458 Italia. The Corvette and Ferrari continued to trade places in the final hours until gearbox trouble forced the No. 51 Ferrari out of contention. It was eventually passed by the other AF Corse car, No. 71. Nissan experienced all the pain of a first-year effort with its front-wheel-drive GT-R LM Nismo.

Nissan's Carlos Ghosn offers to wear electronic ankle tag if released

TOKYO — Ousted Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn has offered to wear an electronic ankle tag and hire guards to monitor him in an unusual bid to secure his release on bail after two months of harsh detention in Japan for alleged financial crimes. Ghosn is also willing to remain in Tokyo, where he has leased an apartment, and post stock he owns in Nissan as collateral, his spokeswoman said. A new bail hearing is set for Monday after an earlier request was denied due partly to concerns the French executive was a flight risk. His release would allow Ghosn to meet more frequently with his lawyers and defend himself before the board of Renault, where he remains chairman and CEO, amid calls for his removal and potential moves to restructure the Nissan tie-up. Ghosn denies any wrongdoing as he awaits trial on charges of financial misconduct. "I will attend my trial not only because I am legally obligated to do so, but because I am eager to finally have the opportunity to defend myself," Ghosn said in a statement on Sunday. "I am not guilty of the charges against me, and I look forward to defending my reputation in the courtroom." Meanwhile, Ghosn's wife, Carole Ghosn, has written to French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss her husband's situation, her public relations representative said. The representative, Devon Spurgeon, confirmed a report in French paper Journal du Dimanche that a letter had been sent to Macron this month, but declined to provide details. France wants a full merger As Ghosn's arrest on Nov. 19 continued to cloud the outlook for Nissan's three-way alliance with France's Renault and Mitsubishi Motors, Nissan said it was not the time to discuss revising the partners' capital ties. Ghosn, who spearheaded Nissan's turnaround two decades ago, had pushed for a deeper tie-up between Nissan and Renault, including possibly a full merger by 2020, despite strong reservations at the Japanese firm. "We are not at the stage for such discussions," Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa told reporters on Monday. Saikawa said he had not heard directly about a reported proposal by the French government to integrate the Japanese carmaker's management with Renault. The Nikkei newspaper reported on Sunday that a French government delegation had informed Tokyo that it would seek an integration of Renault and Nissan, most likely under the umbrella of a single holding company. "Since I have not heard this directly, I cannot comment," Saikawa told reporters.

Dacia Duster to spawn inexpensive Nissan Terrano, will we get it?

When going to overseas auto shows, one can't help but spend an inordinate amount of time eyeballing forbidden automotive fruit. It's often of the seriously rare, criminally powerful and six- or seven-digit variety. But more often than one might think, the genuinely affordable overseas hero makes us swoon, too. So it is with the Dacia/Renault Duster, the cheap-as-chips, hard-wearing utility vehicle. We've often thought that its basic, rugged charms would play well in the US if saddled with a low enough price tag, but we've never seen much of a window for that to actually come true.
But now, Autocar India is reporting that Nissan will flex its alliance with Renault to spin off a Duster of its own, one that exhumes the Terrano nameplate, a moniker once used for overseas versions of the first- and second-generation Pathfinder. The new model will feature unique sheetmetal to give it a familial look, but the interior will be the same, and we expect the same goes for the powertrain, meaning there will be a range of gasoline and diesel four-cylinder engines with both manual and automatic gearboxes and front- or all-wheel drive.
So, does that mean we'll get a Nissan version of the Duster-based Terrano to call our own? Sadly, almost certainly not. Company spokesman Dan Bedore tells Autoblog flatly, "There are no plans to bring this model to the US." Bummer. Even if it isn't ultimately as capable as the larger, long-in-the-tooth Xterra (it's more on par with the now departed Canadian-market X-Trail), we think the Duster's archetypal SUV looks and low cost barrier would win it plenty of fans in our market. Our guess is that redesigning the model to meet US regulations (crash, emissions, lighting, etc.) would be prohibitively expensive, and the Dacia/Renault model is built in some pretty distant facilities - Brazil, India, Romania and Russia among them - making the business case harder still.