The 2012 Nissan GT-R

There’s a reason why the 2012 GT-R is known internally at Nissan as “Godzilla” – it is a monstrous performer both on the road and track. The car offers an aggressive and unique styling that is reminiscent of the old Nissan Skyline models and that will surely make a statement wherever it goes. The best part of the Nissan GT-R is that it offers mind-blowing performance that rivals cars costing two or three times as much.

The 2012 Nissan Leaf

2012 Nissan Leaf. Photos courtesy of Nissan

Nissan jumped into the electric car arena with the Leaf, the compact hatchback providing average people a way to skip gas pumps altogether. Unlike the hybrid cars on the market which use a combination of an electric motor and a gasoline engine, the 2012 Nissan Leaf has only one motor and runs solely on electric power. The car provides a driving experience that closely mirrors that of driving a gas-powered car, including a brisk acceleration ability that comes in handy when merging on the freeway, tight handling dynamics as well as a top speed of 90 mph.

Give Me More Horsepower, Damnit!

Photo courtesy of Scion. 

A horsepower war has been raging in the automotive industry for some time now. Unlike the big war in the late 1960s, this one hasn't been choked out by CAFE government fuel economy standards, despite GM's trying to claim such standards would kill the Corvette and any other cool car it makes. Nope, thanks to some pretty creative technologies like variable valve timing, direct fuel injection, turbocharging, hybrid powertrains and other such engineering trickery, we have been able to squeeze out more power from smaller engines.

Blogging From A to Z Day 7: G is for Godzilla

Images courtesy of Nissan

For the month of April I will be participating in the Blogging From A to Z Challenge. Learn more about the challenge by clicking here. Each day (except Sundays) I will be posting a theme based on each letter of the alphabet. This blog is covering automotive topics for the month. To read my other blog posts for the challenge, click here.

I thought with the release of the Godzilla movie it would be appropriate to highlight the automotive Godzilla, otherwise known as the Nissan GT-R. The car comes by the nickname rightfully, considering it is known for monstrous performance, plus the car hails from Japan.

Blogging From A to Z Day 6: F is for Fairlady

Photo courtesy Nissan

For the month of April I will be participating in the Blogging From A to Z Challenge. Learn more about the challenge by clicking here. Each day (except Sundays) I will be posting a theme based on each letter of the alphabet. This blog is covering automotive topics for the month. To read my other blog posts for the challenge, click here.

Most people have no idea that Nissan's Z cars (like the 300ZX, 350Z and 370Z) are called the Fairlady in Japan. It's a weird name, I know, but it's the domestic name for its famous sports car line and it works in that culture. For a really eye-opening experience, click this link and see the 370Z's Japanese webpage.

Is the C7 Chevy Corvette Stingray Really a 911 Killer

I recently read a brief, rather uninformative article on CNN about how the Stingray Corvette is finally a Porsche 911 "killer." The author of the article did not really explain how that was, so I was left wondering how the Stingray accomplishes such a task.