Holy Crap Are These Bumpers Expensive!

Listen, I'm all for the expansion of aftermarket products for Nissans...really I am.  I've bought my fair share of front and rear bumpers from the aftermarket for my Xterra and Frontier and all have held up well whether from Shrockworks or my favorite builder BTF Fabrication.

That said...and while the product offerings for the new Nissan Titan are a bit more limited...the prices on these bumpers is insane...$2200 before shipping (sure to be another couple hundred) for a front bumper??  And its not even a winch bumper... And near $1700 for a rear bumper?  That is crazy talk.

You see Addictive Desert Designs advertisements in all your typical offroad magazines and at SEMA this past year but I can't help but thinking their prices are a reflection of their speed to market, minimal competition at this point and high marketing expenses given that equivalent bumpers go for 1/2 or even 1/2 of these prices.

I'm sure the quality is substantial...but is it near $3000 for a front bumper good?  No shot.

Dakar 2017 Nissan Final Results

So this year's Dakar is over.  Despite significant changes to how navigation was done, terrible weather conditions at times, 15,000 feet in elevation, some new terrain and new countries...the end results were as would have been expected before the event with Peugeot dominating the competition with their top flight drivers and equipment.  The Toyota Hilux's of Team Overdrive which had been nip and tuck with the Peugeot's during the rest of the year's events were not a significant factor with Nasser Al-Attiyah crashing out early and Nani Roma and DeVilliers finishing 4th and 5th overall, over an hour back.  Overall, Toyotas were the dominant marque of the event putting 28 finishers at the checkered flag out of 57 finishers overall.

So did any Nissans finish after only four started??  Yes...one...

#334--The VK56 powered Renault Duster of Facundo Ardusso consistently finished in the mid 20th position each day with its peak coming on stages 5 and 12 where it finished 18th each time.  This was good enough for the team to score a 22nd place finish overall.  I have learned that these are actually South African built vehicles and will have to inquire as to whether the Thompson Racing outfit that builds them has connections with the Nissan efforts there.

I know the South African teams mostly took the '17 Dakar off and didn't really have anyone present as they have in years past making this year an almost Nissan absent event.  Hopefully some more are built or budgets are found for Nissans in the '18 Dakar given how well the brand has done there in the past and how much Nissan is expanding and pushing its trucks and SUVs worldwide...

Largest Exposure to Stage Rally in the US in '16 was...the 2016 Supercross Season???

Been meaning to post this for a while but just getting around to it now.  Never saw anyone else in the rally scene mention this so either most rally people in the US don't go to Supercross events or they just didn't think it was a big deal.

When you are involved in a sport that generally attracts a few dozen to a few hundred spectators over the course of a weekend event and there are constant hand-wringing sessions over what can be done to improve the visibility of the sport and get more people at least AWARE of it so there is some potential for new blood to be brought it, getting the sport in front of the eyes of tens of thousands of people in a short period of time is a huge deal.

The setup was pretty simple.  You hop in one of the four seats, the Toyota rep helps you put on a set of VR goggles and off you go with Ryan, racing down some dirt roads, keeping up with dirt bike rider racing the same terrain.  Using VR you can look around the interior of Ryan's Rav4 seeing the cage, gaze out the window at the dirt biker, look across at Ryan, examine all the buttons on the dash...it was a REALLY cool experience.

In combination with Ryan Millen and his stage rally Rav4 and Toyota, what you see photos of here went traveling around to the 17 some odd Supercross events in the first half of '16.  With total attendance for Supercross events pushing over 3/4 of a million individuals and a constant stream of people throwing on the VR goggles and riding along with Ryan Millen in the Rav4 down some dirt roads in California, it would have done a Stage Rally organization a great deal of good if it could have partnered with Ryan and/or Toyota to put some kind of "For more info about Stage Rally, go here: XXXX" or "If you want to get into racing cars in the dirt like Ryan and his Rav4 see this: XXXX", etc.  At the very least it could have gotten a lot of eyeballs on the sport and let them know that the sport is out there.

For any rally organizer looking at this...Supercross does have one more event in '16...the season finale at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas in mid October...The opportunity to pull some new eyeballs and competitors/fans into the sport still exists...somebody get on it....

V8 Navara Takes Third in South Africa...

In the Donaldson Cross Country Motor Racing Championship.  This was in Production Class T and driven by Luke Botha and codriven by Andre Vermeulen.  The event (Toyota Kalahari Botswana 1000 Desert Race) brakes down into two races, each of near 500km and is a brutal test of some of the best Rally-Raid drivers this side of Dakar.

The Red-Lined Motorsport team consistently fields four or more V8 powered Navaras (Frontiers) in the Donaldson series and also sends a handful of cars to the Dakar the past few years.

https://www.facebook.com/sacrosscountryracing/

Nissan Patrol Closes in on FIA T2 Class

The FIA's World Championship for Cross-Country Rallies is dominated at the highest level of the sport by your well known Dakar entrants and efforts with Nasser Al-Attiyah, Carlos Sainz, Jean-Luis Schlesser, etc.  These entrants are in the T1 class for "prototype" cross-country vehicles.

The T2 class however is for production based vehicles and it is here where Nissan is leading the pack with a Nissan Patrol (known in the US as the Infiniti QX80).  Driver Adel Abdulla had taken a win in Abu Dhabi and had a 4th Qatar earlier this year and enters the 4th event of the season in Italy this weekend 12 points out of the T2 lead behind Yasir Seaidan and his Toyota LandCruiser.  With Yasir having two Dakars under his belt, he certainly has the experience to take the overall win...though the change in terrain from the deserts of the Mid-East to the tighter, rockier terrain of Italy may be an equalizer.

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/sports/qatar-sport/385653/qatar-s-adel-aims-to-grab-lead-in-italy

You can follow the Italian Baja here:  http://www.italianbaja.it/?lang=en

This event will also include American Bryce Menzies behind the wheel of a XRaid Mini as he continues to prep for what is anticipated to be a Red Bull backed effort at Dakar '17 under the Mini banner.

If You Aren't Following Classic J-Tin on Twitter...

You're missing out...



Especially if you have an interest in potentially purchasing a classic piece of Japanese automobilia.  It appears to be a Twitter account that searches Craigslist ads across the country and then posts some of the best and most interesting Japanese vehicles.  I never imagined the variety of vehicles that are still out there waiting to be bought, loved and restored.  The best thing is that since these are from Craigslist you generally aren't talking about $50,000 spotless masterpieces.  These are often rusty, broken, used and most importantly--cheap.

If you like classic Zs, Celicas, Supras, Datsun trucks, old Landcruisers, 35 year old Subarus, etc.  This is a great account to follow.

Classic J-Tin Twitter Profile...

Nameless Performance, Chris Duplessis and a GT86 in the Desert

This video came out about a month ago and definitely deserves some more views.  The vehicle is a Toyota GT-86 and it was run formerly in a few Rally America events but has now been completely reworked to offer even more speed and RWD insanity.

Filmed in Jean, Nevada during the Seed 9 Rally there this past early November.  The Toyota was taken out on the 4th stage of the event likely due to a broken axle but set the third, third and second fastest stage times on the first three putting over a minute of time on the nearest 2WD competitor in each.  I love seeing a car like this rallying out on the desert roads of the Southwest...little better...

Nameless Performance is a rally oriented aftermarket company that has recently teamed up with the famous Cosworth company out of the UK and is now using this GT86 as a promotional tool and is likely going to be the most recognizable rally vehicle in the US in 2015 as they run a full national series.

Nameless Performance website...

Nissan Grabs a Podium Spot!

Finally!

It took till the last event of the South African offroad racing season (last weekend) to happen but Nissan finally grabbed a rung on the Donaldson Cross Country Championship ladder.  Even better is that it was a Nissan wearing the livery of the event's primary sponsor Atlas Copco (a Swedish industrial equipment company).

Gary Bertholdt and Siegfried Rousseau took their Nissan Navara to a third place finish in a time of five hours and twenty minutes--some 3 minutes adrift of the winner Willem Vos and his BMW X3.  In reaching out to Gary and asking him how the Navara performed this was his response "The Navara was fantastic. It is an amazing vehicle. It's very competitive with the works Fords and Toyotas and that was why we were able to get fourth in the championship ahead of one of the works Fords".  And this is in fact true.  The team of Bertholdt and Rousseau finished fourth on the year in the South African--Donaldson Cross Country Championship.  Not bad given that most of these top teams are headed to Dakar in about a month.

There were six Nissan's entered in the event and six of them finished with three in the top ten out of 30 entries.


South Africa Off-Road Racing...

Caselli, a Porsche and a Cummins All Meet In the Desert...

 
With exactly 75 days to go before the start of the '14 Dakar rally major teams are getting in their last competitive events and testing before packing up their vehicles for the trip to South America.  The 2013 Rally du Maroc (Rally Morocco) saw at least three of these top teams show up for a run through the dunes, sand and rock that should reflect similar conditions to the more "desert" oriented stages of the Dakar.

KTM was present with their top riders--Marc Coma, Chaleco Lopez and American Kurt Caselli.  Caselli would suffer an early 20 minute penalty for missing a waypoint but would battle back to finish in 7th overall.  Without the penalty, Caselli would have finished 6th overall, some 44 minutes back.  The top 6 spots alternated Honda-KTM with Honda coming out on top and looking strong for Dakar.  Additional note here is that while there was only one American in the field, there was also an Australian, two Venezuelans, one Mexican (Carlos Gracida-Garza who finished 20th on a Honda), two Chileans, one South African, one Bolivian and one Brit.  Good to see a wide spread of entrants from across the globe.

Also showing up was a very cool Porsche from the Italian driver/codriving pair of Agostino Rizzardi and Loris Calubini.  They appear to have only made it through Stage 3 of 6.  Agostino has piloted a number of Porsches in various stage rally events around Europe and was using an 4WD Porsche 911 for Rally Morocco.  Great to see one of these back out in the African sand again.

Lastly we have the SMG buggie (a French builder headed by Philippe Gache) that is backed by Cummins of France which finished 2nd overall.  Piloted by Patrick Sireyjol with Francois Beguin as codriver, the Cummins France team finished nine minutes off the top step though this is a tad misleading as the event winner incurred 38 minutes of penalties.  Dropping all penalties the Cummins team would have finished some 44 minutes adrift and still in second place overall.  The Cummins vehicle prevented a clean sweep of the podium by the Rally-Raid dominant X-Raid Minis who finished first, third and fourth lead by top flight Dakar entrant Orlando Terranova.


Oh!!  and the top Nissan in the event?  It was the #342 of Michele Cinotto and Fulvio Zini who finished in 20th of 56 finishers with Nissan putting six finishing vehicles in the event behind only Toyota who saw 17 finishers carry their brand.
Rally Morocco Homepage..

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Chinese Modified 6x6 Nissan Patrols??

Looks like someone (evidently someone who doesn't want to be public) in China is taking old Nissan Patrols and heavily modifying them.  I don't necessarily agree with the writer of the linked article that these were built by someone with military engineering background.

Nor do I agree that all of these are Nissan Patrols.  The bottom vehicle in the snow is clearly a Toyota (you can read the Toyota faceplate in the pictures on the linked wiki page) and I believe most if not all of the others are Toyota Land Cruiser's as well.  Nor do I believe these vehicles are winning every contest (hill climb and otherwise) in sight as noted either.  These vehicles do not possess roll cages or other serious equipment needed for real competition.

The author of this article appears to be merely a backer of anything Chinese and trying to put out there how great these homemade Chinese vehicles are.  If this is Chinese auto journalism, Motor Trend can sleep soundly.

6x6 Nissan Patrols??

New 2015 Nissan Titan Spy Shots

  

Here we go again!  The 2015 Nissan Titan is showing up more and more as it gets out in the wild for testing.  These photos continue the trend of testing the Titan as a tow vehicle.  Every spy shot taken so far has had at least one of the visible Titans towing a trailer.

Additionally the chatter surrounding the new Titan having a diesel engine option in general and a Cummins based mill in particular continues.

Of note here is that this test vehicle appear to be PURELY an engine test vehicle.  The only part that appears modified from your standard 2013 Nissan Titan is the very front engine area which has received new bodywork likely to house the large engine.  The rest is completely stock and provided by a '13 (or similar) Titan.  You can even go as far as looking at the rear differential housing in some of the shots and see that it is your standard Nissan axle housing--and not even of the "finned" variety now found present on the Titans to keep it cool.  Somehow I doubt that Nissan is going to crank up the engine power and torque and yet leave the rear differential unchanged and even more brittle than it was before.

It still seems as if Nissan has a long way to go before getting to running a full production version on the road and I'm thinking '15 is a far more likely model year to see the new Titan than any '14 edition and I'm betting by the size and structure of the front end sheetmetal that it is going to be a LARGE truck--likely bigger than the current Toyota Tundra and more on par with the new Ford Atlas that will be the base for the next gen F150.

Next Gen Nissan Titan Testing...