The Car Lovers Guide to Japan! Part One, Non Car Stuff to Do in Tokyo and The Nissan Crossing Part 1

At a certain time in the afternoon, some of the streets with the most exclusive shops are shut down to traffic so shoppers can take over and stroll the area.  Much to my relief, Christa had never heard of most of the brands and had no interest in shopping here!

Ginza is also home to the Nissan Crossing or Nissans showcase car display showroom.  The Nissan crossing is on one of Ginza’s most swanky intersections and is pretty packed with people.

This is Nissan’s Concept 2020 which is being explored as a possible replacement for the R35 GT-R.  I think it is quite striking and still has a good dose of GT-R DNA.

The Concept 2020 is a hypercar with a hybrid powertrain with a turbocharged IC engine supplemented by an electric motor driving all 4 wheels.

The Concept 2020 has a lot of its bodywork devoted to state of the art aero like the Ford GT.  here a large front splitter feeds air into ducts that manage airflow around the front tires.  The ducts also slow the air and recover pressure while hopefully not adding much to the drag.

6 comments

  1. Kind of confused by the exhaust situation on that concept car, It clearly has side exhausts, plus a big center exhaust at the back, you said it also has a blown diffuser.

    I’m gonna guess that center exhaust at the back is fake, and the “blown diffuser” is the side vortexes from the front exhaust that seal up the diffuser from coanda effect losses.

    If this ever goes to any kind of production they would probably move the side exhausts to that big rear exhaust so that you don’t gas yourself at every stoplight. They could bypass to the sidepipes at higher speeds.

  2. Mike, as a suspension guru, do you have any experience with removing some of the anti-dive geometry a the front to help weight transfer during braking.

    I know it’s not feasible on a low car like that concept car but I know it’s a normal mod for gravel/dirt/snow rally cars.

    Is it a concept that translates to road cars at all or is the grip of a tarmac surface enough that it would negate any gains from that weight transfer.

    1. Thanks, dive and squat are much less talked about than other parts of suspension setup and some cases are still a mystery to me like FWD drag cars.

      Your “Ultimate Guide To Suspension and Handling” was one of the first things I read when I was just starting to work in cars. It mentions dive and squat in that it makes excessive body roll worse “…The driver feels this as a car that is twitchy and unstable at the limit. Dive and squat when combined with roll can make all of these issues worse.”

      Even Herb Adams’s awesome “Chassis Engineering” mentions anti-dive only when talking about how its undesirable for the effect it has on caster. But it does go in depth about anti-squat (those live axle boys sure love anti-squat).

  3. Many years ago I took one of my friends to Manhattan. We planned on eating in China Town (Ajisen ramen the best) But he wanted to go to this mall under the Manhattan bridge.
    Apparently you could get the software to play foreign market DVDs and ps1 games (that’s how long ago it was)
    Well the mall was nice. But in the bottom bottom story of the mall (in a dark corner) they sold things like those figurines. It was a little creepy. But I did find a Star Blazers model. And Gundam figures. So the creepy had a plus.
    I remember he bought about $500 worth of Anime.

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