Log onto www.gtacademy.eu to start your journey in the ultimate driving competition courtesy of PlayStation , Nissan and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Nürburgring, 24 May 2008: Drivers of the world, start your engines – the GT Academy has arrived.
The ultimate competitive driving test will begin on June 2nd when GT Academy goes live in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. The pan-European competition sees PlayStation and Nissan unite the worlds of virtual and real-life racing to make the dreams of aspiring race drivers a reality.
The competition will run as follows:
Stage One: www.gtacademy.eu – 2nd June 2008 for seven weeks
The first phase of GT Academy will take place on line with a giant Gran Turismo 5 Prologue tournament on PLAYSTATION Network. The competition will run for seven weeks and to enter, players must register their PLAYSTATION Network sign in ID on www.gtacademy.eu. The next time they play GT5 Prologue online they will be able to race in the GT Academy Time Trial where they will compete to be the fastest around the Eiger Nordwand track in a Nissan Fairlady 350Z.
more on » Nissan PlayStation GT Academy goes live
Malaysian still loves their cars, but look to the country who owns a few of world’s mega automotive corporation. It could be years before we ditch the cars an hop on the public transport.
A gadget-crazy people show no interest in new cars,dismiss the four-wheeled horse as ’so 20th century.’ Akiko Kashiwagi
Kimiyuki Suda should be a perfect customer for Japan’s carmakers. He’s a young (34), successful executive at an Internet-services company in Tokyo and has plenty of disposable income. He used to own Toyota’s Hilux Surf, a sport utility vehicle. But now he uses mostly subways and trains. “It’s not inconvenient at all,” he says. Besides, “having a car is so 20th century.”
Suda reflects a worrisome trend in Japan; the automobile is losing its emotional appeal, particularly among the young, who prefer to spend their money on the latest electronic gadgets. While minicars and luxury foreign brands are still popular, everything in between is slipping. Last year sales fell 6.7 percent—7.6 percent if you don’t count the minicar market. There have been larger one-year drops in other nations: sales in Germany fell 9 percent in 2007 thanks to a tax hike. But analysts say Japan is unique in that sales have been eroding steadily over time. Since 1990, yearly new-car sales have fallen from 7.8 million to 5.4 million units in 2007.
more on » Japanese and cars Post-Car Society
Late yesterday afternoon a new Nissan 370Z image surfaced, supposedly the image was taken with a mobile phone during a recent Nissan event in Japan judging by the Japanese text above the car. Interestingly enough a much higher quality, but much smaller image surfaced hours before.
When compared to the 370Z sculpture shown at therecent N360 event in Portugal we can start to see somesimilarities between the two cars, namely the wheelarches and the roof line. The new 370Z will be fourinches shorter than the current 350Z, combined with anew roof line (seemingly a throw back to the Fairladyof old) and the usage of the new type headlamps whichfirst debuted on the new Nissan Maxima. The newoverseas Fairlady Z will pack around 330 hp from thenew 3.7 liter VQ engine and is scheduled to make itsworld debut at this years LA Auto Show.
more on » Nissan Fairlady 370Z spied
The new Chevrolet Aveo with 5 doors has been on sale in Europe for a few months now and the 3-door hatchback is ready to join its bigger brother in June. Chevrolet returned to Europe when GM re-branded Daewoo to Chevrolet in 2003 and now, for the first time for a modern Chevy, production has moved to Europe. It is not the first time Chevrolet builds its cars in Poland though, back in 1927 Chevrolet already had a plant in Warsaw, the capital of Poland.
GM’s Warsaw, Poland plant aims to build 60,000 Aveo’s in 2008 and 100,000 in 2009. All these Aveo’s are destined for the European market, or as Wayne Brennon, Executive Director of Chevrolet Europe puts it: “We are proud to build Chevrolet models in the European Union for European customers.”
more on » Chevrolet Aveo 2009 outlook
