A year after its launch as a V8 Supercar, Nissan’s mid-sized Altima has hit Australian showrooms.
Speedcafe.com’s Stefan Bartholomaus spoke with Nissan Australia managing director and CEO Peter Jones about the relationship between the road and racing programs.
SPEEDCAFE: It’s quite rare to be racing a new model for so long before it goes on sale. Do you expect a direct benefit from that in the Altima’s early weeks in the showrooms?
PETER JONES: I think the direct benefit is just having had the name out there. Obviously when you launch a new brand into a country it takes a long time to get the name known. Having this car in Australia since October last year, when it was revealed (as a V8 Supercar), is quite a unique thing in terms of lead time.
The fact that the car has sold well in the United States for a long period of time, and has been number one over there, gives a benefit as well.
In terms of the direct impact of the racing, it’s just the fact that the brand has been out there and consistently on the TV. Getting two places on the podium at Winton also gives the brand further recognition.
I don’t think that the win on Sunday, sell on Monday mentality necessarily translates, but V8 Supercars did a survey of the car park at Bathurst and basically the share we had was bigger than our market share. That was a really positive sign.
SPEEDCAFE: Did it put more pressure on the race team this year, knowing that the public’s first impression of the Altima would, rightly or wrongly, be built around the racing program?
JONES: I don’t think so. We went into it with realistic aspirations. Obviously when we made the decision to invest the money we went in with hopes, but in terms of the first year our performance has well and truly delivered.
The reality of it is that the other teams have had 20 more years of development than we’ve had. For a first year and using our own motor, which is important, I think it’s been good.
To have podiums and run credibly, I couldn’t be happier. Obviously now with the work going on with Nismo, we’re going to have even higher aspirations next year.
SPEEDCAFE: The other aspect of this is how closely the terms Altima and V8 have been linked this year. Is that an education process now, to let the public know that it’s actually a four and a six in the showroom?
JONES: Well, I think the people understand that the car that races on the track isn’t the same as the one on the road, regardless of the manufacturer.
It’s often hard to tell if people are joking, but we do get asked quite a bit if we have a V8. My standard response is that we have four and if you want to buy one it’s going to be pretty expensive!
The reality is that street cars and racing cars are not the same pretty much anywhere in the world. I don’t think it’ll be a big issue.
SPEEDCAFE: How much of this whole spend on V8 Supercars is about the Altima and how much is it an overall polishing of the brand? Can you quantify it in such discrete parts?
JONES: That’s hard to do, but you’re right in that it’s about the whole Nissan brand as well. When we talk about the repositioning of the brand one way to do that is with cars like the Juke, which is funky and a bit different. It’s a long way from perhaps the staid image that people have of Nissan.
Motor racing is another way to move the brand. It’s like any advertising where you can do matrices around the spend and the value you get back, but it’s hard to get the direct connection between spend and outcome.
But at the end of the day if we go into the market and this car sells well, it (the V8 Supercar program) has done its job.
SPEEDCAFE: V8 Supercars is a big way to promote the Altima in its early years here, but is it conceivable that, if there’s ever a push towards two-door cars such as the Ford Mustang in the category, the door could one day open to racing the GT-R?
JONES: I think as racing categories change we always have to look at where we’re positioned. So for the foreseeable future that’s where we’re at (with Altima), and we might use the GT-R in other areas (such as the Bathurst 12 Hour).
The bigger issue for this category is whether Commodores and Falcons are around, not the Altima. It’s a model that we’re going to have here for a long time on the road, but as far as the racing goes, it really comes down to the category.
SPEEDCAFE: How much are you planning to leverage the race team in your advertising for Altima?
JONES: We’re going to look at how we do that. I think at the end of the day you go into something like this as a long-term program and you need to leverage all your assets the best you can.
We’ve had some questions about whether Todd (Kelly) is going to tune a car for us and things like that. He said he’s happy to talk about it, but we haven’t had those discussions yet.
They’re the kind of things we can sit down and look at once we get through the racing season.
I’ve got to say that I’ve been really pleased with how excited the guys (drivers) have been when they’ve been involved in our car launches and dealer events so far. It’s really good to share their excitement with customers.
SPEEDCAFE: So is there any potential for an engineering link there between the race teams and the road product? Almost using the V8 Supercar team as a quasi local Nismo?
JONES: I think these cars are so different to the ones that are on the road, it’s very difficult to translate from one to the other. There may be some marketing things we can do, but it’s hard to do much more than that.
