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Friday, January 04, 2008

Toyota Swears To Dominate NASCAR 2008

The juggernaut car maker from Japan has just had enough of eating humble pie. Toyota has finally shed its modest stance and is now vowing to win the NASCAR 2008.
The bold declaration was made by Toyota Motor Sales’ Vice President for motor sports, Jim Aust in the company’s official blog, Open Road. Aust proclamation refers to a NASCAR-specification built Camry that will vie to bring home the gold for Toyota. The racer is said to compete in the Sprint Cup 2008.

The prediction isn’t far fetched. “Keep in mind that Toyota posted just two top-five finishes and 11 top 10s in 2007, the brand’s first in NASCAR’s premier series,” read Toyota’s official blog.

Toyota entered the inaugural Cup with three teams composed of seven cars. Two of these teams are greenhorns. The brand is guaranteed two spots in the first five races. This leaves the remaining team the task of battling it out for a qualifying position. Consequently, the brands focus was just to make the grade.

The tiger brand has also announced its line-up of drivers in the person of Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin and Kaye Busch. These fine men and women will be manning the Camrys in the 2008 series. The three already have guaranteed spots for the first five races. Renowned former Joe Gibbs driver, J.J. Yeley is also set to ride the Camry. Yeley is now with Hall of Fame Racing. All in all, Toyota has a maximum of 11 cars (and a minimum of five) in the field.

Toyota’s V-8 which powers its Tundra entries intended for the NASCAR Craftman Truck was only allowed to enter the Busch franchise. The Tundra is also required modification for Nextel Cup eligibility.

It seems that Toyota is on the road to greatness, even managing to bump off Ford Motors in the second place for the most units sold in 2007. Toyota even managed to “out produce” GM, making the Japanese brand the largest automaker in the world.

Toyota’s Aust admitted that it doesn’t expect to “compete head to head” with established racing giants Ford, Chevy and Dodge in this year’s cup. However, these brands should watch out for 2009.
Nissan Faces Weight Issue, Vows To Shed 15% Off

We all know the power-weight trade-off. You want horsepower and torque than you got to settle for a weightier ride.

Technological advancements of the recent years took its tool on car weight. To answer this weight issue, Nissan vows to eliminate an average of 15 percent off the rides it produces within the nest seven years. To achieve this goal, the company is eyeing to maximize lightweight materials in its vehicles. Along with this, Nissan is also thinking of reassessing its vehicle design.

Presently, Nissan is looking in to reducing 350Zs weight by as much as 500 pounds from its curb weight. Hopefully the move will result in an optimal horsepower-weight ratio. The move is also eyed to give a better driving dynamics. At the moment, the cost of lightweight materials is relatively higher. Nissan is hoping that these prices would adjust given the anticipated popularity of materials such as carbon fiber. Optimistically, in the future, carbon fiber will find its way in to commercial vehicles.