“We are also particular about the interior!”

The Ariya NISMO’s exclusive rear spoiler is set to pick up air flowing in from the standard car’s roof spoiler, which has a hole in the center to reduce drag (plus from the body sides), to provide more downforce.

“Initially, it was larger, but the power gate actuator on the reference car couldn’t lift it to the top, so we had to redo it. We had to cut up the design that covered the area near the combination lamps and make the whole thing more compact, but when we looked at the finished design, we saw a beauty that had been worked out, and we thought this is the way to go.”

The wheels were jointly developed with ENKEI and the image is the iron core of the motor. The combination design, with a flat outer circumference and slender 2×5 spokes in the center, was the result of a performance study that focused on reducing air resistance, exhausting heat and downforce, and efficiently receiving the wheel’s rotational torque. The rim width is 0.5J wider than the standard model, but ENKEI’s unique MAT process has been used to keep the weight almost the same, and the design is designed to bring out the performance of the Ariya NISMO.

The exterior design of the Ariya NISMO combines a powerful form with a refinement that the development team has sharpened to its limits. The sculptural beauty of the standard car is beautifully sublimated into a premium sporty atmosphere.

The basic interior construction, like the exterior, had the same problems as described at the beginning of the development process. However, when the Aura boldly renewed the interior, including the dashboard area, and incorporated a mature (mellow) sports car taste, a different worldview from the original was produced, and this experience has been used as the basis for the current version.

Based on the black interior of the reference model, black Alcantara leather is used on the dashboard and upper part of the door trim, similar to the GT-R NISMO. The wood finishers are also black, and other decorations are kept to a minimum to create a high-quality black-toned space. The NISMO road car promises to add red accents to this, but this time a new design keyword, ‘Alteria Magma’, has also been added.

Specifically, the illumination under the center console and on the left and right door trim has been changed from the soft white of the standard car to a spicy red, and the exclusive sports seats with red peeking out from the suede perforations express the “hot magma” (inner strength) hidden inside. However, the color temperature of the door trim illumination has been repeatedly adjusted, and the two stitches running along the Alcantara section are red only on the upper side (grey on the lower side) to reduce gaudiness, creating a mature interior suitable for a flagship.

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Although the Ariya NISMO follows in the footsteps of previous NISMO road cars, it is not a real sports design reminiscent of racing cars, but rather the first of a new breed of premium NISMO road cars. It is clear that this strategy is aimed at the coming age of full-fledged electrification, but if this style is recognized, any car can be a NISMO road car. In this sense, the success or failure of the Ariya NISMO is likely to have a major impact on future trends.

translated by DeepL