MORE NISSAN CUBE @ INSIDELINE.COM: www.edmunds.com If you want to find out everything you need to know about the 2009 Nissan Cube S, just pull into In-N-Out Burger. Were living in a drive-thru world, and the Cube is scaled to suit; a little self-contained habitat where life comes to you in a warm paper bag pushed through the driver side window. There in the line at In-N-Out, youve got a panoramic view of your world — neon colors, flashing lights and the big board with all your dining options. Theres no reason to hurry, since youre already where you want to be. Best of all, theres always someplace to put your stuff. A bin, a box, a shelf, a slot with bungee cords. A sliding, folding, tumbling collection of seats that you put together like a puzzle. You never fumble around when youre trying to put something down, because the perfect spot always magically comes to hand. The fact that the 2009 Nissan Cube S is self-propelled is just a kind of unexpected bonus.
MORE NISSAN GT-R SPEC V @ INSIDELINE.COM: www.edmunds.com The 2009 Nissan GT-R SpecV breaks the law. Actually the GT-R has been breaking the law since last year. Before then, the Japanese car industry kept its high-performance cars below a ceiling of 280 horsepower, an unwritten, yet very real limit established by the Japanese government back in 1989. But the Nissan GT-R shattered the glass ceiling with its 480-hp twin-turbo V6. And now the 2009 Nissan GT-R SpecV pushes even farther past the barrier, further reinforcing the GT-Rs status as a true supercar. Just over a year since the cars introduction, Nissan has given a shot of steroids to Godzilla, creating the most extreme road-going machine that Japan has ever seen. And weve got the test numbers to prove it.
MORE 2009 NYAS @ INSIDELINE.COM: www.edmunds.com The first Nismo Z didnt come around until the end of the Nissan 350Zs model cycle, but Nissan isnt wasting any time with the 370Z version. The 2009 Nissan Nismo 370Z hits US dealerships in June, and this time it has a little more power and torque than normal Z-cars, thanks to a 350-horsepower version of the 3.7-liter VQ-series V6. Nissan expects the track-focused Nismo model to account for 5 percent of all Z coupe sales. As with the original Nismo Z, the chassis and bodywork for the 2009 Nismo 370Z have been developed by Autech, the Japanese company that prepares Nissans entries for the Japanese Super GT (JGTC) racing series. But Nissan has been more heavily involved in the engineering of the 2009 Nismo Z, and the automaker had final approval on the design. Probably thats why Randy Rodriguez, the Nissan Design America designer whos credited with the initial sketches for the regular 370Z, is pretty happy with how the 2009 Nismo 370Z turned out. "I think its much better than the last version," he tells us. "The last Nismo was kind of busy and didnt really accentuate the design very much. There was a lot of stuff added to it, and this one seems to be a little bit more refined." At a glance, though, the 2009 Nissan Nismo 370Z appears to compromise the new Z-cars effort to slim down to pure sports-car dimensions. The Nismos wheelbase remains 100.4 inches, but at 174.3 inches in overall length, its 7 inches longer than <b>…<b>
