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Nissan Safari police truck a sort of A-Team van from Japan

Television today might be at one the best points in the medium's history with shows like Mad Men, Louie, True Detective and streaming offerings like House of Cards. However, none of those come close to the number of car chases and explosions of '70s and '80s offerings like Charlie's Angels, The A-Team or The Dukes of Hazard. Apparently, this prevalence of action at the time wasn't just an American phenomenon. In Japan, a show called Seibu Keisatsu fulfilled the nation's need for shootouts and stunts.
Nissan was a major sponsor of the show, and therefore the brand's vehicles were used extensively, including a highly modified Nissan Safari SUV (also known as the Nissan Patrol), pictured above. In the show's lore, it was equipped with radar, a camera and a fire extinguisher capable of turning over a car. The series ran 236 episodes from 1979 to 1984, and with the trailer below as indication, that allowed time for plenty of car jumps and explosions.
The entire Seibu Keisatsu series is now coming out in Japan on DVD and Blu-Ray packed in a fake gun case. The trailer below shows off some of the action of the series. It all starts out normal enough, but about a minute into the video there are all sorts of Nissans jumping and crashing. Plus, there is a guy on fire in a shootout. This show looks like some seriously cheesy fun. Scroll down to get a taste of it.

Daimler and Nissan to build luxury cars at new plant in Mexico

A few years back, when Daimler was looking for a partner to spread the cost of development of small cars, it agreed to collaborate with Nissan on future products, such as vehicle platforms and drivetrains. The latest development in the collaboration concerns the assembly of small luxury cars for Infiniti and Mercedes-Benz at a Nissan plant in Mexico, two unnamed sources told Reuters.
The plant in question, Aguascalientes, is a $2 billion project that will open later this year next to an existing Nissan factory. The upcoming Infiniti Q30 four-door hatchback is expected to be built there, possibly alongside the Mercedes GLA-Class, which is one of several candidates Mercedes is considering to build at this facility, Reuters reports. The GLA will debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show this month, and initial production of the model will take place in Germany. The Q30 could follow a similar path, with assembly starting at Nissan's Sunderland plant in the UK, and then expanding to Aguascalientes later on.
The underlying platform of the Q30 and GLA, codenamed New Generation Compact Car (NGCC), was developed by Daimler. The Q30 would be the first Infiniti produced under the automakers' agreement. Last year, Nissan agreed to make engines that would find their way into Mercedes and Infiniti vehicles.

Nissan Leaf sales up again in February, Chevy Volt dips deeper

Nissan managed to buck the industry's overall trend of lower sales in February with double-digit growth throughout its lineup. That includes a 12th month of record sales for the Nissan Leaf electric vehicle, with the year-over-year numbers up more than a skosh. The February ledger for the Chevy Volt looked much worse, falling 25.6 percent from February 2013 down to 1,210 units. With 1,425 Leafs sold, Nissan came away the winner in a head-to-head competition between these the two early plug-in vehicles for the fourth month in a row. Nissan expects the Leaf's sales momentum continue in March. February Leaf sales were up 118.2 percent, making 2014 the car's best February ever. The car was most popular in San Francisco, CA and Atlanta, GA, two places where the the brutal winter cold that struck most of the country had a limited effect. Nissan said that other markets with notable Leaf sales growth were Honolulu, HI, Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX and Denver, CO. Toby Perry, Nissan's director of EV sales and marketing, said in a statement that Nissan, "amped up advertising in the latter half of February, which already has resulted in an uptick in sales and a significant increase in shopping traffic. We expect to see that momentum continue in March." The Volt retains an overall sales lead against the Leaf, but Chevy's calendar year-to-date sales numbers are down 23.1 percent so far in 2014. Overall, Chevy's sales calendar YTD numbers were down just 7.7 percent, so the Volt is performing below average. As always, we will have a more complete report of last month's green car sales up in short order. Green GM Nissan Electric Hybrid PHEV ev sales