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GT-R takes on Altima V8 Supercar and Leaf Nismo in Nissan time attack special

One of the support races for the Clipsal 500 V8 Supercar race in Australia was a Nissan showcase in the form of a time attack challenge: at the starting line were the Nissan Leaf Nismo RC, a GT-R and an Altima V8 Supercar. The 80-kilowatt Leaf Nismo RC was given a seven-second head start on the 545-horsepower GT-R and a 26-second lead on the 600-hp Altima V8 Supercar in hopes that it could get around the 3.21-kilometer course first.
Nissan's not afraid to burn the Leaf Nismo RC's rubber at the track, recently letting video series Translogic hit the kerbs, and it's put it up against some competition, having raced a Tesla Roadster - and lost. The odds were a bit better this time, but it wasn't the finish the hosts expected. Now a race commentator, the driver in the GT-R, Neil Crompton, finished on the podium of the Toohey's 1000 race in an R32 GT-R in 1992.
You can watch the hard-fought time attack in the video below. Skip ahead to 3:43 if you just want the action, but Crompton's recap of every driver interview ever is worth a watch at 2:41.

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.

Nissan's crowdsourced Project Titan is ready to tackle Alaska [w/videos]

Alaska still offers Americans the chance to really experience the wilderness, and Nissan is challenging its Titan pickup to its offroad extremes with a little help from its fans. After crowdsourcing a heap of mods, the company is handing it over to two Wounded Warrior Project Alumni to do their worst in the backcountry to see what the truck can do.
Nissan last experimented with the crowdsourcing idea on its Project 370Z in 2012 but might have taken things even further this time. For Project Titan, the automaker let fans vote on 10 different areas to customize on a 2014 Titan Crew Cab PRO-4X. To fit the rugged look, the company covered it up with a custom digital-camouflage wrap with a Wounded Warrior Project emblem and even outfitted its all-terrain camping trailer in a similar scheme. An LED lighting rig was also added to the new bull bar and roof rack to brighten the night. For a just little more grunt, the 5.6-liter V8 was outfitted with a Nismo cold-air intake and Borla cat-back exhaust, and to keep from getting stuck, the pickup got an upgraded suspension with more travel and 18-inch wheels with 35-inch Nitto offroad tires. The interior was also slightly revised with big GPS system and custom embroidered seats.
Now, it's time to see if the truck's mods can handle what the Alaskan wilderness can throw at it. The two Wounded Warrior Project Alumni are just starting their expedition and are expecting snow on the way. Scroll down to watch three build videos for the Titan and read Nissan's official announcement. You can also follow their journey on Nissan Trucks' Facebook page.