2011 Nissan Altima Base Sedan 4-door 2.5l on 2040-cars

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Nissan Altima takes first V8 Supercars win

The V8 Supercars championship used to be strictly a contest between Holden and Ford. But just as BMW crashed the Audi and Mercedes party in DTM, so has Nissan (and for that matter, Mercedes) pushed past the door into Australia's popular touring car series. And like BMW, Nissan hasn't waited long before notching its first victory.
Nissan claimed the checkered flag this weekend in the first of three races at Winton, the ninth stop on the calendar. And what a spectacular win it was: not only did Nissan take the checkered flag, they finished one-two. James Moffat drove his Altima to the finish line just ahead of teammate Michael Caruso. It was Caruso who lead the first half of the race after qualifying just behind defending champion (and current points leader) Jamie Whincup, who suffered a gearbox malfunction and retired on only the ninth lap.
Of course that's just one race out of 27 so far and 37 scheduled this season, so that won't be elevating Nissan or any of its drivers to the lead the same way that BMW did upon its return last season to DTM, but it's a good start and a cause to celebrate for Nissan. Mark Winterbottom (Ford) and James Courtney (Holden) won the following two rounds at Winton as Jamie Whincup (Holden) leads Will Davison (Ford) in the standings.

NA auto output to reach 11-year peak

According to Automotive News, automakers are expected to manufacture 16 million light vehicles in North America in 2013. That's up 500,000 units from last year and marks the largest number since 2002. The prediction comes courtesy of LMC Automotive and IHS Automotive, which point to the improving US economy as a bellwether for total production. LMC Automotive says North America will produce 16 million vehicles while IHS has a slightly more optimistic forecast of 16.1 million units. A total of seven automakers are slated to increase production on the continent this year. Nissan is set to see the largest jump at 20 percent over last year.
Volkswagen, meanwhile, is one of the only manufacturers predicted to scale back production. Analysts expect the German company's output to fall by 23 percent to 170,000 units, thanks in part to slow demand for the Volkswagen Passat and Jetta.

Skyline-powered Nissan Patrol shows Juke-R how it's done

If you had told us a few years ago that people would be shoehorning GT-R engines into Nissan SUVs, we'd have told you you were nuts. But that was before the Juke-R came along. And before the Qashqai-R project followed a similar formula. Well, now there's a third example.
We don't know who made it or who it belongs to, but some our-kind-of-nuts character has shoehorned the 2.5-liter turbocharged inline-six from a Skyline GT-R into a fourth-gen Nissan Patrol sport-ute. And from the sound of it, we gather the engine has also been heavily tuned beyond its 215-horsepower stock specification.
What's even better is that this Patrol-R isn't alone. Check out the second video below and you'll see a whole club of Patrol owners who've shoehorned in Nissan RB engines like the ones that powered generations of Skyline GT-Rs.