Nissan Australia says Nismo is right for Australia, just not right now.
Speaking to CarAdvice at the Nissan 360, Nissan Australia's General Manager of corporate communications, Peter Fadeyev, said Nissan is certainly interested in bringing Nismo to Australia, but it's a complete project that needs further study.
"Nismo is certainly a work in progress for our country. Australia has a strong appetite for performance sub brands – a number of German manufacturers provide evidence for that – and the project continues." Fadeyev said.
Fadeyev provided no definite timeline for Nismo's introduction to the market however we can extrapolate that given the lead-time required to launch an entirely separate sub-brand, this may be a few years away yet.
"We are looking at Nismo as a complete brand for Australia. That includes parts, merchandise as well as complete turn key models."
Speaking of models, Nismo currently makes the Nissan Juke and 370Z as complete models, two cars that Australia would be interested it.
"[We would bring Nismo models] that would resonate mostly with the Australian public. Not all models have a Nismo equivalent, but cars like Nissan 370z and Juke Nismo editions would be great for Australia."
Nismo, which stands for Nissan Motorsports International has been around since 1984 but has recently merged inside of Nissan to become the company's mainstream performance sub-brand. Creating accessories, performance parts and whole cars.
In order to grow the brand and its appeal to a wider audience, Nismo has identified two target audience categories: Performance seekers and Highlife seekers.
Performance seekers, the traditional fans of Nismo who see the brand as an official tuner will still be catered to, but the company hopes it can widen its appeal to non-motorsport fans through its personlisation and advanced technology programs.
Should Nissan bring Nismo to Australia as a performance sub-brand? Nissan recently confirmed that a new sports car concept will be shown at the Tokyo Motor Show, suggesting that a Nissan Silvia (200SX) replacement is on the way.
What cars would you like to see Nissan launch as Nismo derivatives?
