Nissan's Malaysian franchisee Edaran Tan Chong Motor Sdn Bhd looks to be highly charged about the development of the Nismo brand. They'd officially launched the 'Nismo spirit' during the Triple Thrill Weekend festivities in conjunction with the Super GT in earlier in June and have not looked back since.

Part of the Nissan PJ showroom in Jalan Kemajuan has been dedicated to Nismo, with all the related paraphernalia and aftermarket performance parts gloriously displayed. Just to recap on the entire theme, the Nismo moniker represents Nissan Motorsports Co. Ltd., formed in 1984 to run all of Nissan's motorsports activities. Since then, they've had a great share of success in all parts of the world and in various different racing series and championships.

But Nismo isn't just about racing though. The less glamorous side of their business is in making and marketing aftermarket parts – to those not in the tuning line at least. To hardcore Nissan tuning geeks, Nismo has long established itself as the producers of premium, high quality go-faster equipment. Such a name it has for itself that no respectable Skyline GT-R owner would let his car be totally devoid of Nismo components.

Now Nismo has taken it a step further. They've always marketed performance parts in relation to different states of tune, though never with any clear definition for each of the products. So they've developed a simple formula involving three specific tuning concepts. With typical Japanese pragmatism Nismo came up with S-tune for street use, R-tune for track use and Z-tune for the ultimate combination of the former two. Comlex it ain't!

Individual parts from either of these ranges can be purchased separately to suit your needs, but Nissan also provides full cars equipped with the complete package of your choice. There being just three options, it won't be too hard to decide but Nissan reckons that the S-tune would most probably sell the most. For starters, we thought it be best to try that street setup on Nissan's softest car in the market.

(The rest of the article can be found in Hypertune Vol. 50)

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