Nissan Serena Nismo Is the GT-R of Minivans in Japan

There's a whole bunch of sexy, futuristic minivans that are sold in Japan and probably nowhere else. Oddly, a tuning industry has also been built around them, and Nissan wants part of the action with the Nismo version of the Serena.

What used to be reclusive news from a country far, far away is now international news. People are curious what sort of oddball creations are being launched in Japan. And looking at the Serena Nismo, we can see why.

If we covered up the grille, we probably wouldn't know it's a Nissan. The thing that's interesting about this Nismo project, shown at the Tokyo Motor Show, is that it's a prototype. So not only have they fitted a muffler to the 2.0-liter engine, but it's also supposedly received an ECU tune.

However, you will be able to buy this thing, with prices starting at 3,419,280 yen ($30,400). That gets you the minivan plus a snazzy body kit which includes the usual array of skirts and spoilers. The front end features a protruding chin spoiler with chrome and red accents. The same treatment can be seen at the back, where the Serena has sprouted a diffuser.

The new wheels are shared with the Note Nismo and set off the pearl white bod paint with contrasting black roof. They might look small, but shose are 17-inch wheels riding on Bridgestone Potenza Adrenalin RE003 tires size 205/50/R17. Unfortunately, the 7-seater's interior is not as impressive, but at least it's practical.

Also new is the powertrain option: e-POWER. All we know is there's a small internal combustion engine that charges the battery which in turn powers the wheels. And if the Nismo wasn't enough Autech also makes a body kit for sexy Serena. Of course, you can have it in other colors, like black or red. But pearl while just make you think of the GT-R Nismo

Nissan Plans Global Celebration of Usain Bolt's Birthday, You Can Join In

Nissan has decided to celebrate the birthday of its Global Director of Excitement in a truly global fashion.

While a celebration of an important figure in the automotive industry is usually reserved for company founders, racecar drivers, inventors, and designers, Nissan’s Global Director of Excitement is a special guy. You may have heard of him, as he has represented Jamaica at the Olympics a couple of times.

Yes, it is the one and only Usain Bolt. He is a seven-time Olympic gold medalist, and a legendary sprinter in general. Bolt is the reigning World and Olympic titleholder in 4 x 100 meters relay, 100 meters sprint, and 200 meters sprint.

If you are somehow not impressed, he is also the first track athlete in the entire Summer Olympic history that has won three gold medals in one discipline.

As some of you know, the 2016 Rio Olympics is the last event of this kind that Bolt will compete in, while the 2017 World Championships will be his last competition in the field of athletics. Next week, he will celebrate his birthday, so Nissan has decided to make his 30th anniversary memorable and global at the same time.

Nissan’s marketing crew has done proper use of a brainstorm and came up with #HappyBoltDay. The campaign will work on social media, and it will involve fans around the world, which will be invited to imitate Bot’s famous lightning bolt pose.

To join in, all one has to do si take a picture while doing the “lightning bolt” pose and post it on social media with the hashtag #HappyBoltDay.

Once they have done that, fans can RSVP on Facebook to join the celebration of the Jamaican athlete. Bolt has been named Nissan’s Global Director of Excitement in 2012, and is the ambassador of the Nissan GT-R.

The Japanese brand had the inspiration to launch the 2017 Nissan GT-R in Brazil this year, right after Mr. Bolt swept through and won all of the events he entered at this Summer Olympic event.

R35 Nissan GT-R Butt Lift for R34 Looks Credible, Rear Wing Too

Face swaps for go-fast machines are already a bit of a trend on social media, but why discriminate - what about the other end of these speed devils? Well, the rendering staring at us from behind the screen comes to address that, gifting the R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R with the posterior of the current R35 GT-R.

There are many ways to regard this pixel transformation, but whether you call it a butt lift like they do in the beauty industry or would rather prefer to see it as something linked to the facelift term that's so often used in the car business, it won't make a difference.

The idea is that, unlike in the case of those face swaps mentioned in the intro (here's an example involving the McLaren 720S and the Toyota 86), j.b.cars, the label behind the work, hasn't done a copy/paste job.

Instead, most of the elements that define the rear end of the still-in-showrooms GT-R have migrated to the posterior of its predecessor.

And, despite the massive gap between the two generations, the visual stunt we have here seems to work just fine. Then again, those of you who are tuned into our SpeedShot tales might not find this surprising, since a similar feat, albeit involving the faces of the Japanese heroes, has recently pleased our eyes.

As you'll notice in the social media post below, the update for the R34 has even gone beyond the back of the machine. To be more precise, the list of borrowed R35 goodies also includes the wheels (of course), those unconventional door handles and the air vents close to the front wheels.

Of course, we can't talk about the R35 without reminding you that Nissan is on its way to giving us a new generation of the supercar, albeit with the carmaker still being tight-lipped on the details.

What Else Can You Run a Diesel Car On?

Compression-ignition engines, more commonly known as diesel engines were initially designed to run on peanut oil, not the slightly viscous, petroleum-based fuel it runs on today. Its inventor created it specifically to run on pretty much any fuel that will burn, even really low-grade stuff, in order for it to be used to help mechanize parts of the world that had at that point not been touched by the industrial revolution.

For most of its active life, though, the diesel engine has run on oil-based fuel. Renewed talks of running diesel engines on alternative fuels have slowly been changing this over the last two decades, yet those types of diesels run on non-oil-based fuel constitute a very small percentage of all diesel engines out there. Some city bus services, as well as farms, run their vehicles on pure biodiesel, having fully renounced the conventional stuff, but for the most part, this is only a droplet in the bigger scheme of things.

Yet this means it is feasible (at least in theory, because in practice I’m sure Big Oil would have something to say about this) to shift diesels from running on the conventional stuff to cleaner and more renewable sources. And, even though they aren’t really mainstream alternatives, there are plenty of options that could get the job done.Biodiesel
Biodiesel is a generic term referring to diesel fuel made from natural sources that don’t include any oil-based components. These can be both vegetable oils or even animal fats processed to be used as fuel. Probably the most common crop it’s made from is rapeseed, but palm oil is also used and, well, pretty much any oil-rich crop.

It can be mixed with regular diesel fuel, or it can be used on its own. However, it’s not perfect because it doesn’t store as well as normal diesel fuel (it’s not really usable after eight months), it doesn’t yield quite as much power from engines and it can have higher viscosity too - the latter may make it difficult for the fuel to circulate in lower temperatures, although this can be fixed through the use of thinners and additives.Used vegetable oil
Recycled cooking oil essentially falls under the biodiesel category. However, it differs because in not needing its own production process, it’s even greener than the purpose-made variety. So it not only requires less energy to make, but its green credentials are further improved because it would otherwise just be a waste product - this is a great way to burn it and also find a genuine use for it at the same time.

You can’t just empty your deep frier into the tank of your diesel vehicle, though. The oil first has to be filtered to remove impurities and, just like regular biodiesel, it needs to be mixed with additional chemicals for engines to run well on it. In fact, if an engine is run exclusively on repurposed cooking oil, it will also need a fuel heater placed somewhere along its fuel lines. Otherwise, the system might get clogged up when temperatures drop due to the fuel’s increased viscosity.Blue Crude-based fuel
Blue Crude is a product patented by a German company called Sunfire. It is made using clean energy, air tan water and it bears the promise that it can completely replace oil in the petrochemical industry. Automaker Audi also managed to create a very similar oil replacement a few years prior (which it called E-Diesel), but now it’s partnered with Sunfire after confirming the qualities of its new fuel.

The process to obtain it is very simple - water is subjected to electrolysis to separate it into its constituting elements. Then the resulting hydrogen is mixed with carbon dioxide extracted from surrounding air before being subjected to the Fischer-Tropsch process that converts the mix into a liquid. The resulting product is called Blue Crude and it can then be converted into E-Diesel whose properties include a high cetane number, as well as no sulfur or aromatic compounds - this translates to a fuel that provides engines with a lot of power and once burnt emits fewer harmful chemicals in the process.Dimethyl Ether (DME)
DME, the shortened form of Dimethyl Ether, is a gas you might find as one of the ingredients in hairspray, but its uses go far beyond that. It has been proven to be a viable fuel for compression ignition engines which can run on it with minimal modifications. Moreover, it actually improves a diesel engine’s emissions rating by practically eliminating the dreaded particulate emissions - actual engine performance isn’t affected either, so it sounds like a viable solution.

Australia is heavily reliant on diesel fuel and it’s here where efforts are being made to begin production of DME for use in commercial transport vehicles. The technology is already available, it’s just that producing DME is currently about three times more expensive than the production process for conventional diesel.Other worthy mentions
The fuels above are currently the most promising, but they are certainly not the only other fuels a diesel could be run on. Butanol from biomass is also mentioned in studies on the matter, although it difficult to use it on its own and it needs to be combined with conventional diesel in variable proportions in order to work.

Ethanol can also be used to power diesel engines, although, just like Butanol, it needs to be mixed with another fuel to burn (and especially lubricate) properly - it can’t make up more than 15 percent of the fuel mixture, though.

Fuel made from algae is also on the list of promising alternatives. Apparently, some species of microalgae are excellent at producing oil (up to 60 percent of their entire weight). The rest of the process is pretty much the same as that for making regular biodiesel. 

Driven: Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon 2.2 CRD AT8

We all know that necessity, intellect, and free will are the elements that made humankind the dominant species on Earth, but as far as evolution is concerned, the 20th century changed us the most. Two world-encompassing wars, antibiotics, nuclear power, the airplane, television, the back-and-forth between Russia and America in the space race, the end of segregation and colonialism, the Internet, West versus East; plenty of groundbreaking moments and inventions define this period, changing our ways of living like no other era before it.

Have you noticed that something’s missing from the list? The automobile could be seen as a personal means of transportation by some and as a luxury by others, yet we’re missing the point here. In the context of the early-to-mid 1900s, the automobile is what freed us from the horse-drawn carriage, boat, and train, allowing us to roam free like no other invention in history.

I do believe the car is the greatest liberator of man (and woman) ever, the most important general-purpose invention from that era. Henry Ford democratized the automobile with the introduction of the Model T, then Volkswagen launched the Beetle in extremely different circumstances but with the same purpose as Ford three decades earlier. The German people were enticed by the dream of owning a car on a different level as well thanks to the Autobahn conceived by the Weimar Republic back in the mid 1920s.

Coincidence or not, the United States Numbered Highway System was also founded in the ‘20s as the more comfortable and faster alternative to early auto trails. But wait a second, don't these road networks limit our driving options? The answer to that is yes, and for me, it’s not exactly liberating to drive behind fast-lane hoggers or listen to Lil’ Something on the radio while stuck in the daily traffic jam in the exhaust fumes of others.

But on the other hand, certain types of automobiles aren’t limited to driving exclusively on the blacktop. While I do refer to 4x4 utility vehicles, I am certainly not alluding to what the British call green laning. The concept of a go-anywhere vehicle for everyone came to be as a result of War World II and the Willys–Overland Motor Company.

Audi Q5, Bentley Bentayga Get the 4x4 Squared Treatment

Santa's just around the corner, and people who are into expensive cars and charities will start to wonder what's the best excuse to trick out their cars for winter. So why not take an ordinary "boring" SUV to the next level with a formula that's tried and tested?

Due to all the money Mercedes was making off the G-Class, it approved several low-volume version, knowing that some customers will pay anything for the exclusivity. One such project was the G500 4x4 Squared.

Not only was this twice the SUV, fitted with the now legendary portal axles, but also came with the 4-liter V8, which at the time was a brand new engine. The cost matched its exclusivity, and you might think that Mercedes is the only company that can get away with something like this, but you'd be wrong.

Bentley also has a rich history of limited-edition exotics, and while it's never made anything lifted before, there's never been an SUV before the Bentayga either. "Oh, but the G-Class is built differently from the unibody Bentley," we hear you say. That's true, but car construction didn't stop Mercedes from lifting the E-Class All-Terrain 4x4 Squared.

Completely revising the air suspension of a Bentley could add about 50% to its cost. But plenty of folks are into having the most expensive and outrageous vehicle, so finding customers wouldn't be a problem.

Unfortunately, these photos aren't real, just 3D models created by @banglaautodesign. They used the same sets of chunky off-road tires for both the Bentayga and an Audi Q5 and Q7, which look built for arctic expeditions with an extra-wide footprint dispersing weight. The rest of the body kit also perfectly captures the spirit of the 4x4 Squared, using the "under rider" bumper extensions, some fender extensions, and a safari-style roof rack, not for shooting, but for carrying Santa's gifts and stuff.

V12 Toyota Supra Rendered, McLaren F1 Engine Penetrates the Hood

Anybody wishing to get up close and personal with the amazing machines currently adorning the SEMA show floor needs to deal with the wave of 2020 Toyota Supras present at the Vegas event. And while you'd normally expect this to lead to a saturation effect, you should know certain virtual artist actually feel the need to add... even more custom Supras.

Case in point in the work of Gurdeep Panesar, which is the eye candy that brought us here. We're looking at an Mk V Supra that has been given a thorough transformation, one that might seem like it comes straight from the just-launched Need For Speed: Heat.

Nevertheless, it's worth mentioning the pixel wielder actually created these renderings back in March when the Supra was one hell of a fresh arrival.

Of course, the first thing that catches the eye is the acid lighting surrounding the Japanese sportscar. However, the devil is in the details with this one and you might notice that, in the first rendering below, the front end packs quite a few mods.

Chief among the changes is a... V12 engine protruding through the hood. And this isn't any V12 swap (as if such a thing exists), since the motor has been borrowed from the McLaren F1.

The BMW-supplied engine has obviously migrated from the middle section of the British beast to the nose of the Supra, which is only another reason for purists to engage on a rage journey when discovering this virtual build.

Motivation aside, the front fascia of the Toyota has been redesigned, with this now being able to provide proper cooling to that motor. Oh, and let's not forget the beadlock wheels of the Supra, which keept those tires in place under the extreme loads such a contraption would deliver.

And since we talked about artists displaying extra 2020 Supra content as a result of the said SEMA flood, here's another example of the sort.