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Asking price for Paul Walker's GT-R from Fast & Furious nearly triples [w/video]

The German owner of the only Nissan Skyline GT-R to survive filming Fast & Furious (a.k.a., The Fast and the Furious 4) has put his car up for sale following the death of Paul Walker, Yahoo Autos reports. The original sale price was reportedly an already hefty 300,000 euros ($412,110), but it has since been raised to 1,000,000 euros ($1.37 million).
Despite many well-intentioned efforts, the Skyline GT-R was (and still is) illegal to import for street use in the US, so this R34-generation GT-R and seven others were shipped here without engines and classified as kit cars to sidestep federal law. Once here, the engines were installed, and seven street-legal GT-Rs proceeded to be destroyed during the filming of F&F. But one car, the "hero" car for sale here, was driven by Walker in non-violent scenes and thus is the only GT-R that survived filming.
Then, in July 2009, the federal government cracked down on importers of these cars, seizing almost 50 GT-Rs, including this one, telling owners to export them or risk having them destroyed. The hero GT-R was therefore exported, and its whereabouts have been unknown until recently, when the current German owner allowed it to be featured in a review (watch the German-language video below). You can see the online ad (also German) of the heavily modified GT-R here, where it sits proudly with its sky-high price tag.

Nissan Leaf becomes least expensive 5-seat EV with massive price drop

In a roundtable interview today at the North American International Auto Show, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn announced a $6,400 price drop for the base-model 2013 Nissan Leaf. Last year's base model was $35,200, while the new base-level 2013 Leaf S starts at $28,800. Ghosn says the new prices make the Leaf the least expensive five-seater electric for sale in the US.
Some of the lower cost is due to a difference in content from last year's low-end model to this year's. But a sizable portion can be chalked up to the Leaf's production moving from Japan to Tennessee. The 2013 Leaf is not only assembled in the US now, but its lithium-ion batteries and the car's electric motors are manufactured in the same southern state.
The Leaf SV will be priced from $31,820 for 2013 compared to $35,200 last year. The high-end Leaf SL now starts at $34,840, down from the 2012 model's $37,250. These models also have differences in content. One big one is a new 6.6-kWh charger that reduces charging times pretty dramatically.

Mitsubishi and Renault-Nissan expand partnership, US will get new sedan

Mitsubishi and Renault-Nissan have just inked an alliance that might, hopefully, reverse the ailing fortunes of the Mitsubishi brand in the US market. The big chunk of news is that Mitsubishi will produce two Renualt-based models for sale in the US market, and that they'll be built at the Renault-Samsung factory in Busan, South Korea.
The plans call for a D-segment sedan to be followed by a C-segment offering. Based on the cars built at the Busan factory, that means Mitsubishi will be getting the SM5 and the SM3, a pair of handsome sedans that are based on Renault-Nissan's D and C platforms, respectively. These same platforms underpin a number of US market Nissans (not to mention a number of cars from Renault), namely the Pathfinder, Maxima, Quest and Murano for the D platform and the last-generation Rogue and Sentra for the C platform.
Besides the sedan production, Nissan and Mitsubishi will be expanding their joint-venture company, NMKV, which produces Kei cars for the Japanese market. A new, all-electric offering will be born from the partnership, likely based on a Kei car platform. The partnership between the three brands will also lead to increased sharing of technology, particularly relating to electric cars.