Mike, TheMekanic take on Auto News, Gadgets, Tips and more ….

Nissan announced that the GT-R had set a new lap record on the Nurburgring with a lap time of 7 minutes and 29 seconds back on April 17, 2008. Since then, there has been rather “interesting tit for tat” between the German sports car builder Porsche and the Japanese automaker Nissan seeing who is faster than whom.

Porsche off course didn’t take this too well, what with Nurburgring being in its backyard, and its pride at stake cranked up the power in the 911 Turbo, made it go an a diet with a 55 lbs weight loss. Even though 10 seconds is respectable, it is still behind the GT-R’s time.

Note: While all the times claims by Nissan and counter claims by Porsche is not independantly verified, there has been a lot of detractors and supporters. Until then, I’d take whatever these 2 claimed times with a pince of salt.

At the Tokyo Motor Show this morning, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn rolled silently onto the stage in the company’s latest battery powered concept, the Land Glider. Powered by battery, the Land Glider is not the first leaning car.

Intended to be an urban runabout, the two-seat Land Glider is extremely narrow. It certainly will help ease congestion and make it easier to park. Inside the cockpit, the Land Glider’s pilot sits front and center behind a suitably futuristic instrument cluster and a steering wheel that looks like twin joysticks.

According to Nissan, the steering operations are computer controlled through a drive-by-wire arrangement, so there doesn’t seem to be a direct connection between the steering wheel and the car’s four contact patches

I’ve often wondered why you need 2 hand and 2 leg to control a car while to control a jet airplane, you need probably less. This would be the answer if it ever gets on the road. With PSP generation, I reckon a joy still is all that is needed to drive a car. Okay perhaps a brake pedal for emergencies will be great as backup.