Nissan Confirms Two New NISMO Models for 2013 LA Motor Show

We’re almost exactly one month away from the annual LA Motor Show, and we already know that there will be a total of 22 new vehicles making their debut.  We also know that two of those vehicles will be from Nissan – one will be the NISMO Juke RS, and the other is a mysterious NISMO concept. After talking so much about the new Nissan ZEOD RC yesterday, we figured that we’d wrap up the week with a speculative look at what Nissan is bringing to LA.

Nissan Juke NISMO RS

The Nissan Juke may not be the most conventional vehicle in the Japanese brand’s lineup, but it’s definitely one of the most prolific.  Apparently, the Juke NISMO has been popular enough that it warrants its own expansion, which we’ve known was coming eventually since late last year.  Well, eventually is finally here.

Although our specs are all still “unofficial”, current reports indicate that the Juke NISMO RS will get a boost from 197bhp to 240bhp or even 270bhp depending on the market. That’s a huge upgrade considering that the original Juke NISMO only had 9hp over the regular Juke. TopGear.com estimates that between the turbocharged engine, a stiffer chassis and a possible AWD-only configuration, the Juke NISMO RS will achieve a 0-62 time under seven seconds.

Expect at least a few aesthetic changes too.  The Juke NISMO RS will likely get a body kit upgrade, new wheels and a lower ride.  But again, this is all mere speculation until November 19.

New NISMO Concept

Here’s where things get interesting… There are several possibilities for what this “new NISMO concept” could be.  We already know that Nissan is premiering the new GT-R NISMO as one of two new sports concepts at the Tokyo Motor Show just a couple days later. It’s not totally impossible that the GT-R would somehow be simultaneously unveiled at LA, but it seems unlikely.

That leaves us with a couple other options – there’s the rumored Nissan Versa NISMO, and the Nissan Leaf NISMO RC we’ve seen concepts for periodically over the past couple years.  Either option would make sense if Nissan wanted to have something to compete with the Yaris Hybrid-R from Toyota. Unfortunately, we really don’t know which it’s going to be, or if it will be something totally new.

Fortunately, each day brings us closer to the day when we don’t have to make any more guesses.  Stay tuned over the next few weeks as we get official confirmation for more and more upcoming Japanese car debuts – there are sure to be a lot of them.  Until then, thanks for reading!