How a day at the races changes what you think of Nissan

To the average person, Nissan isn’t regarded as a sporty brand. Outside the sub-culture of drifters, where Sylvias and Cefiros perform excellently, the lack of souped-up Sentras or Teanas plying the streets of Manila create a misconception that Nissan doesn’t have a strong motorsports heritage. Boy, that thinking is so wrong. See, Nissan has been heavily invested in motorsports. Since the 1960s, the company operated the Oppama and Omori Works to serve the needs of its privateer and factory operations, respectively.

However, it was only in 1984 when Nissan decided to merge these two operations together that a single rallying point emerged. Enter: NISMO. Since then, NISMO has been synonymous to making Nissans go faster. Not only are they responsible for developing and selling competition cars, engines, and parts but they also make performance parts, tuning kits, and even full-on Performance Packages for road cars. Throughout the years, NISMO has had a hand in extracting more performance on everything from an Almera to a Juke to even Godzilla itself, the GT-R.

Hot on the heels of the 2017 GT-R’s Philippine launch, Nissan wants to prove that excitement is in their blood; that motorsports is pretty much part of their DNA. And there’s certainly no better way to experience that than a weekend at Japan’s highest-tier motorsports event, Super GT.

Nissan and NISMO are no strangers to Super GT as they’ve been taking part in the series since 1994. Throughout the years, they not only race, but design and develop the cars as well. Since then, they’ve won 11 Driver’s and 11 Team’s Championships making them the most winning manufacturer. They’ve also won the top-tier GT500 class four out of the last five years.

It’s also worth noting that Nissan’s increased promotion of its NISMO brand is newsworthy in itself. Having gone through its ups and downs, NISMO is certainly gaining a portion of the spotlight thanks in part to the leadership of Takao Katagiri. Apart from serving as NISMO’s President and CEO, Katagiri-san is also the President and CEO of Autech Japan, Inc. (a subsidiary that focuses on tuning and converting Nissan cars) and more notably, the head of the NISMO Business Office of Nissan.

Sitting on the board of both Nissan and NISMO allows Katagiri to move with a much better synergy. Currently, NISMO is re-aligning itself, serving not just as Nissan’s performance brand, but as a personalization brand as well.

According to Katagiri-san, NISMO’s current contribution to Nissan is small: something in the range of three to five percent of annual sales. Comprised of “Performance Seekers,” these customers are looking for something race or performance-oriented. Served by the NISMO S and RS lines, this core market is satisfied by a holistic approach that gives increased power, handling, and braking performance. Examples of this would be the NISMO GT-R, 370Z NISMO, and the Juke RS.

However, realizing the potential of a wider target market, NISMO is now aiming for a second market segment: the “Highlife Seeker.” These are customers who don’t necessarily want something performance-oriented but want their cars to stand out. Catering to this segment, there’s now a bigger range of exterior, interior, and handling upgrades. Not only is this their way to penetrate to a wider audience, but it also allows them to penetrate emerging markets, particularly those with no prior presence of NISMO. Ultimately it also serves as an entry-point for a complete car in the future. Currently, the likes of the Almera and X-Trail benefit from this Performance Package.

Moving forward, NISMO is aiming to be more global and accessible. Katagiri is pushing that more Nissan vehicles will benefit from a Performance Package upgrade in the near future. Though tight-lipped, he has at least identified four vehicle categories that they’re looking at.

The first three are pretty obvious: the first is their sports car such as the GT-R; the second is their compact car offering (though Katagiri didn’t specifically identify the Sylphy); and the third is their Electric Vehicle or EV which could be based off the Leaf NISMO RC, which is in turn, a full-working race car. The fourth one is a very intriguing category: SUVs.

And mind you, this isn’t the Juke or the X-Trail, both of which already have NISMO treatments for the Japanese market. No, when Katagiri mentioned SUVs, he meant to include pickup trucks as well. This single statement pretty much confirms two things for Nissan: that first, they’re finally working on a 7-seater SUV based off the NP300 Navara platform; and second, that the NP300 Navara itself will be getting a NISMO Performance Package soon.

With Nissan finally putting a spotlight on NISMO, things are indeed looking much more exciting. By levering on their impressive motorsports performance and heritage, it’s only going to be a matter of time when Nissans become much more exciting to look at and more involving to drive. Hiroshi Tamura, the GT-R’s Chief Engineer said it best when he said that there’s a bit of GT-R in every Nissan. Although it may seem like wonderful PR speak at the time, it looks like he wasn’t kidding. Nissan is serious about NISMO and that could very well pave the way for an entirely new breed of Nissan cars.