Front-wheel Drive Nissan GT-R LM NISMO Might Be Non-hit Wonder
After a less than stellar result for Nissan at the 24 Hours of LeMans this year, Carlos Ghosn has stated the program — at least in its current form — is under review.
According to Sportscar365 (via AutoBlog), “high-level executive meetings” were to take place last week and could decide on the future of Nissan’s front-wheel drive endurance contender.
Speaking at London’s Formula E race last month, Ghosn was up front about the future of Nissan’s latest creation.
“Nissan has always been associated with innovation,” Ghosn said. “We made an attempt that did not prove fruitful. We must reassess the strategy.
“We wanted to be different and competitive but we’ve only been different.”
The team is still planning to take part in a test at Circuit of the Americas later this month.
More by Mark Stevenson
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I think their Nismo team oversold it to management. They specifically said they did not want to make a Nissan Audi R18 E-tron ie. do what everyone else is doing. And yet its such a complicated thing now that how can one even guarantee or promise even a podium in 3 or 5 or more years. And that's with a conventional chassis. With a moonshot like this? You have to chuck hundreds of millions at it. You would think Nissan management would understand what with their storied motorsport past... hell you would think Nissan RENAULT would understand motorsport isnt built and won in a single year.
Racing is an unforgiving testing environment. Radical projects like the GT-R-LM and the Deltawing don't have the luxury of having years to work out the bugs.
This was a few years back but after seeing some Skullcandy Altimas fail to even finish their respective race, and a race-spec Nissan GTR loose qualifying via broken suspension, I'm thinking Nissan just needs to step up their quality.
I hope they make it work. It has some great ideas.