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Nissan's Ghosn called out by Deltawing's Panoz in print ad

When the Nissan ZEOD RC limped to the side of the Circuit de la Sarthe a mere five laps into this year's 24 Hours of Le Mans, we imagine that a certain American motorsports figure at least smirked a little. Don Panoz's ongoing feud with Nissan probably means he wasn't sorry to see the arrow-shaped racecar's poor showing, and now he's stepping up his campaign against his former racing partner.
For those who need a refresher, back in 2012, Panoz and Nissan teamed up to field the DeltaWing, an innovative, wedge-shaped racer, as the first entry in the 24 Hours of Le Mans' experimental Garage 56 concept. The car rapidly became a fan favorite. The Panoz/Nissan alliance didn't last, though, and before long, the DeltaWing's designer was getting a paycheck from Nissan and the ZEOD RC racer arrived. Shortly after that, Panoz began mulling over a lawsuit alleging intellectual property infringement. The American motorsports icon would eventually pull the trigger on a suit back in December of 2013.
Panoz's latest move in the ongoing feud involves an open letter in both The Nashville Tennessean, the paper that serves Nissan's US headquarters, and trade paper Automotive News. The letter calls out Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn directly, and points out some of the similarities between the DeltaWing and the ZEOD RC, going so far as to quote the original car's designer, Ben Bowlby.

Nissan working on something radical for Le Mans

With Porsche joining Audi and Toyota at the front of the LMP1 grid at Le Mans next year, Nissan is the next to be throwing its hat (and considerable R&D budget) into the proverbial ring. But only if it's allowed to do something radically different, according to the latest report in Car magazine.
Just what that means remains to be seen, but Nissan is reportedly in active discussions with the ACO (the body that governs the race) to see how far it can stretch the regulations. The ACO has taken an intriguingly different approach to equalizing performance, mandating the maximum amount of energy that can be used per lap instead of telling teams what kind of engines they can use. That's how Porsche is entering with a four-cylinder engine, Toyota with a V8 and Audi with a diesel six. But when it comes to the shape of the car itself, the rules are considerably more restrictive.
Unfortunately the rules would prohibit Nissan fielding the ZEOD RC (with its narrow front track) in the LMP1 class, relegating it instead to the Garage 56 slot for experimental racers (which the DeltaWing filled before). And the realities of endurance racing would effectively prohibit anyone from fielding an all-electric racer. Within those confines, though, Nissan is eager to find enough wiggle room to make something both visually and technically different from other LMPs. And if the ACO won't let it do so at Le Mans, it could turn to another race or series (like the Nürburgring 24) that would.

Renault-Nissan debuts new Common Module Family for future vehicles

Platform sharing is nothing new for the 14-year-old Renault-Nissan Alliance, but this partnership is set to introduce new modular platform components that will eventually underpin 11 Renault models and three Nissan vehicles by 2020. Rather than being a typical platform, the Common Module Family (CMF) actually represents five segments of a platform that can be used in various applications, and one of the first vehicles to use this architecture will be the 2014 Nissan Rogue (spy shots of which are shown below) when it arrives "in late 2013."
As pictured in the image above (click to expand), CMF is composed of four chassis component, principally the front underbody, rear underbody, engine bay and cockpit as well as a common electrical system. Besides the next-gen Rogue, future Nissan models to share CMF will include the Qashqai and X-Trail, while Renault models will start using the platform next year on vehicles including the Scénic and Laguna. The CMF architecture is expected to help the Alliance reduce the parts cost of a vehicle by up to 30 percent and reduce the entry cost by up to 40 percent. The official press release with more details about CMF, and what it means for Renault-Nissan, is posted below.