03 Nissan Xterra on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Nissan rowed the Note ashore [w/video]

Normally we wouldn't suggest trying to float your car on water, but Nissan has made some modifications to turn its new Versa Note hatchback into a makeshift rowing shell.
Nissan replaced the car's rear seats with a sliding rear rowing seat, modified the doors to open wider at 90 degrees and fitted a pair of oars. Most importantly, they put the whole thing on a floating platform to keep it from sinking into Eton Dorney Lake, the site of the 2012 Olympic rowing competitions in England (where the car is simply known as the Nissan Note).
Then they invited medal-winning competitive rowers Helen Glover, Sophie Hosking and Polly Swann to come along and row the thing, making use of the around-view monitor system to see where they were going. All in all it may not be quite as cool as the boats which Fiat made out of the 500 or Mini made out of its convertible, but it's still enough to float our boat. Check it out in the video clip and press release below and the image gallery above.

Nissan Cube dead for 2015

Another class cut-up has graduated from our motor pool. The Nissan Cube's indefatigable weirdness was likely both its chief selling point and its Achilles Heel, but Autoblog sources say that after a six-year run in the US, the niche player has been scrubbed from the Japanese automaker's lineup.
The move is hardly unexpected - there was confirmation from Nissan Canada that it was pulling the plug on the asymmetric little front-driver in its market back in May, and sales have not exactly been sparkling here in the States, either. In June, Nissan shifted just 336 Cubes, down 23.8 percent year over year. So far this year, Nissan has sold 2,294 units, a sales pace off 30.9 percent versus 2013. At its peak in 2010, the Cube remained firmly a niche vehicle, selling 22,968 units.
Nissan North America's Dan Passe, senior manager of product communications, maintains that "We are continuing to sell the 2014 Cube and we haven't made an announcement about future model plans," but Autoblog sources indicate that an official announcement will be coming in the next couple of months, and the Cube has been conspicuously left off of an exhaustive 2015 lineup "Charting the Changes" announcement released on Tuesday.

Nissan's new GT-R boss says next car will go for more volume

Since its introduction in 2008, the Nissan GT-R has seen a steady increase of power and price almost every year, but the big news for the next-gen supercar might be an increase in production. Automotive News recently spoke with newly appointed GT-R chief engineer Kinishi Tanuma who said Nissan needs "more of a volume car." Nissan has sold a little more than 2,000 GT-Rs in the US since 2012 - 1,188 last year and 952 so far this year.
Of course, a key limiting factor in the GT-R's production is its hand-built engine. Currently, only four people are qualified to build the GT-R's twin-turbo V6, but Tanuma says a fifth is in training. Even if production numbers are raised, Nissan also wants to add more quality and value into the GT-R. There is still no word as to what kind of timeframe Nissan is looking to start pumping out more GT-Rs, but with a new Nismo model rumored to be bringing a two-second 0-60 time, demand is sure to be on the rise.