2004 Nissan Quest Minivan 4-door 3.5l Navigation! Dvd! Leather! No Reserve! on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Cadillac ELR, Nissan Resonance and Ford Atlas win Eyes on Design awards

This year's annual Eyes on Design awards were presented at the end of press days for the Detroit Auto Show on Tuesday. Given out for the best production and concept car designs that debuted at the show, and voted on by an esteemed panel of actual car designers, this year's award for best production vehicle design went to the 2014 Cadillac ELR. The 2014 Chevrolet Corvette, which was the show favorite among Autoblog editors, apparently did not impress the Eyes on Design judges enough with its all-new vent-festooned design.
The award for best concept design was actually split as a tie among the Nissan Resonance and Ford Atlas concepts. Last year's winners were the 2013 Ford Fusion and the Lexus LF-LC concept.
The Eyes on Design organization also presented a new honor this year called the Catalyst Award to Bob Lutz, former Vice Chairman of General Motors. Lutz is reported to have given a defense of design in his acceptance speech, arguing that advancements in quality across the industry as a whole have made good design a key differentiator for buyers.

Nissan's Carlos Ghosn taps the brakes on autonomous car progress

"Self-driving cars remain a long way from commercial reality."
Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn shocked the automotive industry last year when he announced that his company plans to offer consumers an autonomous car by 2020. The automaker even showed off its self-driving Leaf prototype as proof. He was bolder recently with the pronouncement that select markets could have them in 2018, if laws allowed. The boss' optimism appears to be waning, though, and he's now sounding a lot more conservative about the future. While driverless vehicles are still on the way, Ghosn is hedging his bets with a more gradual implementation of several systems.

Nissan 'Ride of Your Life' campaign turns an Altima into a race car [w/video]

Nissan definitely makes some exciting vehicles. The GT-R has received continuous improvements to keep it at the head of the pack in the performance car world. And the Leaf might not bring driving intensity, but its technology is quite impressive. However, there is nothing especially thrilling about the Altima. Granted, it races in the Australian V8 Supercars series, but that car really only shares its basic shape with the production version. So it may see surprising that the Japanese automaker is hoping to inject some drama into its midsize sedan with its new Ride of Your Life ad campaign.
The project is pretty clever. Nissan invited several people to the Horse Thief Mile circuit at Willow Springs Raceway for a ride in an Altima racecar. After a few laps with a professional driver around the course, they pulled into the pits, and the passengers got a big surprise. We won't spoil what happens for you. You can check it out in the video below.
The concept is somewhat similar to Toyota's thrill ride ads for the Camry last year. Both promotions try to show that that these four-door, family sedans can be more than just boring transportation. Nissan's commercials will begin airing on TV soon. The automaker hopes to excite potential Altima buyers ahead of its upcoming national sales event. Scroll down to watch the video to find out the big secret and read the full release about the campaign.