2009 Nissan Gt-r Premium Coupe 2-door 3.8l Twin Turbo All Wheel Drive on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Japan minister launches counterattack after Ghosn blasts justice system

TOKYO — Japan's justice minister launched a rare and forceful public takedown of auto executive-turned-fugitive Carlos Ghosn after he blasted the country's legal system as allowing him "zero chance" of a fair trial as he sought to justify his escape to Beirut. After his dramatic flight to Lebanon last month, Ghosn spoke in public for the first time on Wednesday, saying he had been treated "brutally" by Tokyo prosecutors. He said they questioned him for up to eight hours a day without a lawyer present and tried to extract a confession out of him. In an effort to undo Ghosn's attempt to sway public opinion in his favor, Justice Minister Masako Mori followed shortly with a statement, translated into English and French, and held a news conference after midnight and again around 9:30 a.m. on Thursday morning to defend Japan's justice system. "I decided to do this because defendant Ghosn was looking to justify his unlawful exit from Japan by propagating a false recognition of our justice system," she said at the second news conference. "I felt that we needed to respond immediately to broadcast a correct understanding to people around the world." Ghosn, the former chief of Nissan and Renault, fled Japan last month as he was awaiting trial on charges of under-reporting earnings, breach of trust, and misappropriation of company funds, all of which he denies. Mori said Ghosn's escape from his trial in itself "could constitute a crime" that would not be tolerated in any country. "My impression in listening to him was that there were few statements that were backed by any real evidence," she said. "If he wants to prove his innocence, he should face fair trial proceedings here," she added, stressing that the allegations against him concerned financial crimes in Japan. "That would be the mark of a first-class businessperson and good citizen." Mori blasted Ghosn for violating his bail by fleeing the country "without showing a passport and breaking international rules that everyone in the world follows." "It was a breach of faith that can't be explained to our children," she said. The spotlight on Japan's justice system comes as Mori is set to host in April the United Nations' Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, held once every five years.

Zombie cars roundup: Dodge has sold 3 new Vipers this year

Car models come and go, but as revealed by monthly sales data, once a car is discontinued, it doesn't just disappear instantly. And in the case of some models, vanishing into obscurity can be a slow, tedious process. That's the case with the 12 cars we have here. All of them have been discontinued, but car companies keep racking up "new" sales with them. There are actually more discontinued cars that are still registering new sales than what we decided to include here. We kept this list to the oldest or otherwise most interesting vehicles still being sold as new, including a supercar. We'll run the list in alphabetical order, starting with *drumroll* ... BMW 6 Series: 55 total sales BMW quietly removed the 6 Series from the U.S. market during the 2019 model year. It had been available in three configurations, a hardtop coupe, a convertible and a sleek four-door coupe-like shape.   BMW i8: 18 total sales We've always had a soft spot for the BMW i8, despite the fact that it never quite fit into a particular category. It was sporty, but nowhere near as fast as similarly-priced competitors. It looked very high-tech and boasted a unique carbon fiber chassis design and a plug-in hybrid powertrain, but wasn't really designed for maximum efficiency or maximum performance. Still, the in-betweener was very cool to look at and drive, and 18 buyers took one home over the course of 2021.   Chevy Impala: 750 total sales The Impala represented classic American tastes at a time when American tastes were shifting away from soft-riding sedans with big interior room and trunk space and into higher-riding crossovers. A total of 750 sales were inked last year.   Chrysler 200: 15 total sales The Chrysler 200 was actually a pretty nice sedan, with good looks and decent driving dynamics let down by a lack of roominess, particularly in the back seat. Of course, as we said regarding the Chevy Impala, the number of Americans in the market for sedans is rapidly winding down, and other automakers are following Chrysler's footsteps in canceling their slow-selling four-doors. Even if Chrysler never really found its footing in the ultra-competitive midsize sedan segment, apparently dealerships have a few leftover 2017 200s floating around. And for some reason, 15 buyers decided to sign the dotted line to take one of these aging sedans home last year.

Mercedes and Infiniti confirm joint production in Mexico [w/video]

It's official, folks: After initial reports last week indicated that Mercedes-Benz was preparing to begin assembly at the Nissan plant in Aguascalientes, Mexico, the two parent companies have announced just that. Only instead of using the existing Nissan plant at the site (in operation since 1992), Daimler and the Renault-Nissan Alliance have announced a joint venture to build a new one alongside it.
The latest stage in the growing French-German-Japanese collaboration is part of a new collaboration that will see Infiniti and Mercedes jointly develop and build a line of compact premium vehicles, with the first Infiniti models set to roll off the assembly line in 2017 and the first Benzes to follow a year later. Neither party announced exactly which models that would encompass, but Mercedes already has a robust line of small vehicles (including the A-Class, B-Class, CLA and GLA), and Infiniti has long been toying with the idea of slotting in something smaller below the Q50.
The billion-euro project, split evenly between the two industrial giants, is set to create 5,700 new jobs in Mexico. In addition to the Aguascalientes project, Infiniti and Mercedes are also undertaking joint production of four-cylinder engines (initially for the C-Class and Q50) in Decherd, Tennessee, from which they will be exported around the world. By the time the new factory in Mexico reaches full capacity in 2021, it will have the capability to produce 300,000 vehicles annually. That's on top of the 850,000 vehicles the existing facility is capable of handling.