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Nissan goes retro with Bathurst racing livery [w/video]

At the Bathurst 1000 next month, the #23 Nissan Altima V8 Supercar will wear this throwback red, white, and blue color scheme. And as you might have guessed, the team didn't pull it out of thin air. It's derived from the colors worn by the Skyline that Jim Richards drove in the 1990 Australian Touring Car Championship – the precursor of today's V8 Supercars series. In that historic season, four-time ATCC champ Richards won two rounds in the Skyline H31 GTS-R before switching to the newer R32 GT-R and winning one more. Those three checkered flags helped Richards score his third title, and the first of three that Nissan would go on to win in the series. Richards kept that H31 and still brings it to historic racing events with what he remembers as his favorite racing livery. If there's anything we love more than old racing liveries, it's when automakers and racing teams bring them back. Whether it's the Gulf livery sported by Aston Martin at Le Mans, the Martini stripes worn by Williams in F1, or the throwback liveries Toyota recently cooked up for the GT86 (aka Scion FR-S). Nissan's done some of its own retro racing liveries as well, like the one the GT-R LM Nismo wore recently, or this one done up Down Under. Watch and listen to Nissan's Michael Caruso talk to Richards about it in the video below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Nissan to celebrate 25 years since first Australian Touring Car championship title at 2015 Bathurst 1000 - #23 NISMO Nissan Altima V8 Supercar to race in colors of Jim Richards' 1990ATCC-winning Nissan Skyline HR31 at 2015 Bathurst 1000 on October 8 to 112015 MELBOURNE, Australia – Nissan will celebrate its first Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) title by running a spectacular retro livery on its #23 Nissan Altima V8 Supercar at this year's Bathurst 1000 at Mount Panorama from October 8 to 11 in Bathurst, Australia. The #23 NISMO Nissan Altima V8 of Michael Caruso and Dean Fiore will race in the same colors as the 1990 Nissan Skyline HR31, 25 years after Jim Richards used the Skyline to win the 1990 championship. Richards raced the Skyline in six of the eight rounds of the 1990 ATCC. Richards switched to the new Nissan GT-R R32 for the final two rounds of the1990 championship, but crucially, two of his three round wins that year were with the Skyline HR31.

Renault to alert prosecutors about Carlos Ghosn's wedding costs

PARIS — Renault has found evidence that it paid part of Carlos Ghosn's wedding costs and is preparing to turn the investigation over to prosecutors, two weeks after the French carmaker's scandal-hit chairman and chief executive was forced out. An internal probe established that a 2016 sponsorship deal with the Chateau de Versailles included a 50,000 euro ($57,000) personal benefit to Ghosn, the carmaker said on Thursday, confirming a report in Le Figaro. The carmaker replaced Ghosn on Jan. 24, more than two months after his arrest in Japan over allegations of financial misconduct uncovered by Renault's Japanese affiliate Nissan, which he also chaired. Renault began its own examination of payments to Ghosn within days of his detention but had not flagged any irregularities until now. Renault has discovered that "Mr Ghosn was accorded a personal benefit valued at 50,000 euros under the terms of a sponsorship contract with the Chateau de Versailles," the company said in a statement on Thursday. "Renault has decided to bring these findings to the attention of the judicial authorities." The office of Ghosn's Japanese lawyer Motonari Otsuru did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ghosn remains in detention in Tokyo with limited opportunity to respond publicly to allegations against him. Renault had agreed before the wedding to sponsor 2.3 million euros of Versailles renovations in return for a credit granting the carmaker services from the chateau worth 25 percent of that amount, or 575,000 euros, a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Le Figaro reported that the chateau allowed Ghosn to host his wedding reception on its grounds in exchange for Renault's donations to the Versailles estate, resplendent home to France's last kings. The rental fee was deducted from Renault's credit for use of the Grand Trianon at Versailles on Oct. 8, 2016, when Ghosn and his second wife Carole hosted their wedding reception at the 17th-century palace, the source said. The event had already attracted public attention for its opulence and Marie Antoinette-themed costumes. The Renault board was informed about the discovery on Wednesday, as reported by Le Figaro, the source added. Earnings/Financials Government/Legal Mitsubishi Nissan Renault renault-nissan

The UK votes for Brexit and it will impact automakers

It's the first morning after the United Kingdom voted for what's become known as Brexit – that is, to leave the European Union and its tariff-free internal market. Now begins a two-year process in which the UK will have to negotiate with the rest of the EU trading bloc, which is its largest export market, about many things. One of them may be tariffs, and that could severely impact any automaker that builds cars in the UK. This doesn't just mean companies that you think of as British, like Mini and Jaguar. Both of those automakers are owned by foreign companies, incidentally. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata Motors of India, and Bentley by the VW Group. Many other automakers produce cars in the UK for sale within that country and also export to the EU. Tariffs could damage the profits of each of these companies, and perhaps cause them to shift manufacturing out of the UK, significantly damaging the country's resurgent manufacturing industry. Autonews Europe dug up some interesting numbers on that last point. Nissan, the country's second-largest auto producer, builds 475k or so cars in the UK but the vast majority are sent abroad. Toyota built 190k cars last year in Britain, of which 75 percent went to the EU and just 10 percent were sold in the country. Investors are skittish at the news. The value of the pound sterling has plummeted by 8 percent as of this writing, at one point yesterday reaching levels not seen since 1985. Shares at Tata Motors, which counts Jaguar and Land Rover as bright jewels in its portfolio, were off by nearly 12 percent according to Autonews Europe. So what happens next? No one's terribly sure, although the feeling seems to be that the jilted EU will impost tariffs of up to 10 percent on UK exports. It's likely that the UK will reciprocate, and thus it'll be more expensive to buy a European-made car in the UK. Both situations will likely negatively affect the country, as both production of new cars and sales to UK consumers will both fall. Evercore Automotive Research figures the combined damage will be roughly $9b in lost profits to automakers, and an as-of-yet unquantified impact on auto production jobs. Perhaps the EU's leaders in Brussels will be in a better mood in two years, and the process won't devolve into a trade war. In the immediate wake of the Brexit vote, though, the mood is grim, the EU leadership is angry, and investors are spooked.