Nissan‘s Juke-R project may not be the favorite of Nissan executives, but there’s no denying the amount of brilliance that’s been packed into this custom crossover project.

We’ve been thoroughly excited about the upcoming release of the Scion FR-S – read our review here – but with any other sports car we hope that it’ll get a version with more power. A turbocharged Scion FR-S was recently spied testing out at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, but we shouldn’t get too excited yet.

We have reason to believe that the turbocharged Scion FR-S seen drifting is actually the drift car being built by GReddy for Scion drifter Ken Gushi. Gushi has been campaigning a rear-wheel-drive converted tC for the past few years in Formula Drift and it’s publicly known that he’ll be climbing into the cockpit of an FR-S for the upcoming season.

Previously, Gushi had teamed up with RS*R for the development of his race cars, but with RS*R taking a back seat this year, GReddy was called upon to execute a custom turbocharged powerplant and to get Scion’s new sports car ready to roll sideways.

We still have no doubts that Toyota will come out with a more powerful version of their new sports coupe, but we still believe it’ll come in the ways of a supercharger from TRD, rather than a turbocharged setup. For now, we can enjoy the sound of a turbocharged FR-S going sideways.

Check out the video after the break.

[Source: Motor Trend]

2012 is starting to look like the year of the new hachi roku as both Toyota and Subaru ready for an onslaught of marketing events for their joint sports car. For the upcoming Tokyo Auto Solon, held from Juanuary 13 to 15th, two special Subaru BRZ’s will be on display.

From the Toyota GT86 to the Tacoma, TRD has been hard at work developing performance accessories for Toyota’s line-up. In its latest project, TRD introduces a number of tuning upgrades for the new Toyota Aqua, known as the Toyota Prius c in markets outside Japan.

Nissan has announced an extensive 10-car lineup for the upcoming Tokyo Auto Salon including everything from modified minivans to GT-R race car. Following roughly a month after the Tokyo Motor Show, the salon is in many ways Japan’s version of SEMA, giving aftermarket tuners and race shops a chance to show their wares.

It might sound like an oxymoron to hear Toyota iQ City Racer, with its 1.3L VVT-i engine pumping out the ever-so massive 98-hp. But that’s not going to stop Toyota from releasing a limited edition iQ aimed at the French market with some sporty aesthetic modifications.

Nissan and Playstation are flexing their GT Academy muscles this year, enlisting four winners of previous GT Academies and campaigning a full gamer line up at this year’s Dubai 24 Hours Race. In previous years, GT Academy only used one winner along with three pros, but this year the team of drivers will consist of all virtual-to-reality competition winners.

When we think of tuners and enthusiasts shoehorning engines into other vehicles, the thought of Honda‘s F20C S2000 powerplant making its way into a Toyota Pickup isn’t exactly on our list… at all.

When Scion‘s FR-S debuted out in Los Angeles, a modified black variant by GReddy was also present but wasn’t exactly center stage. This isn’t a huge surprise as GReddy has been a long time partner with Scion, but this might also be revealing a few more projects that are underway through the collaboration.

Scion decided to bring the modified version out to a Cars and Coffee event in Irvine, California, where visitors were treated to hearing the FR-S’s new exhaust note courtesy of GReddy. Given GReddy’s track record with other vehicles and products, a turbo kit is definitely in development right now along with a bolt-on intake and exhaust.

But what’s even more interesting is the possibility that GReddy will be building a drifter for Ken Gushi for the 2012 Formula DRIFT season since RS*R has decided to take a backseat to everything going on. Clearly the FR-S will be a popular tuning platform, let’s see if GReddy can put itself back on the map with it.

Check out the video after the break.

Nissan shows off its new direction for Nismo at the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show by introducing performance models on less expensive vehicles such as the Juke. Even though none of the details are finalized, Nissan did stress that an expansion is occurring and bringing Nismo to markets outside of Japan has become a priority.

Here’s a prime example of just how disconnected corporate executives are from their own world. Reports are coming in that Nissan executives aren’t too happy about the Juke-R project, a project that much of the public and the media are praising.

Prior to heading out to Silverstone where some very lucky journalists got to enjoy Nissan‘s Juke-R project in the flesh, the development team took the vehicle to MIRA’s proving ground to give it some shakedown runs, tweaking and tuning the crossover to perfection.

Nissan‘s Juke-R might just be one of the greatest project cars in all of automotive history, and the monster has finally hit the track at Silverstone with a video to prove it. The GTR-powered crossover did some laps out in England for journalists and it proves that the Juke-R is a formidable piece of machinery.

Despite the rain in the footage, it’s perfectly clear that the Juke-R can hold its own and the project can be deemed as successful. The crossover’s completely capable of accelerating, braking, turning and performing the duties of any track car with ease. And while most people are still anti-Juke based on its styling, there’s no denying you wouldn’t think twice about owning this Juke-R.

Check out the video below:

Subaru‘s BRZ GT300 race car is looking fabulous on the track, but we couldn’t help but wonder where Toyota‘s GT 86 race car was at the Tokyo Motor Show. Apparently nowhere, maybe not even on the minds of Toyota engineers responsible for their GT300 race car.

We’ve been going crazy over Toyota‘s GT 86 (or rather, Scion‘s FR-S) and Subaru‘s BRZ, but there’s no denying that Subaru’s BRZ GT300 racer is the coolest of the bunch right now. While it was awesome to get to see the machine at the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show, seeing it in action and on the track is, well, just something else.

It might not be the GT-R powered Juke R, but Nissan‘s Juke NISMO Concept is a strong indication that the Japanese automaker is planning a higher-performance version of the sport cross. From styling components, to handling upgrades and power adders, the NISMO-tuned Juke takes the sub-compact crossover’s fun level to the next level.

While Honda and Toyota have been messing around with electric car concepts for quite some time now, Nissan has been selling the Leaf EV for a whole year now. Aiming to display its expertise in electric vehicles, the company’s Tokyo Motor Show display included a slew of emissions free models, ranging from the PIVO 3 personal commuter, to the stunning ESFLOW sports car.

It’s definitely not as awesome as the Juke-R, but the Nissan Juke Nismo Concept is probably a more realistic variant of the Juke and gives the first glimpse into Nismo’s future. Featuring a lower, wider and tougher stance, the Juke Nismo Concept received an aerodynamic-enhancing body kit, more power from a tuned engine, a stiffer chassis, larger tires, sporty interior treatment and a Nismo-colored paint scheme.

Even though it was originally reported that Mugen’s supercharged Honda CR-Z would never see production, it looks like Toyota‘s introduction of the GT 86 and Subaru‘s BRZ might have changed Honda’s mind just a little bit. Mugen Euro and Honda confirmed that their supercharged 197-hp CR-Z will see the light of day with an estimated base price of around $35,650 (£23,000) based on today’s conversion rates.

Often overlooked in complicated car projects and builds is the handling aspect of the finished product. Sure, you can squeeze a huge powerplant into any chassis and give it eye-popping performance numbers, but if the car can’t even make a left turn, what’s the point? Nissan’s Juke-R project has captured the attention of every car enthusiast worldwide, and their latest video shows off RML’s focus on the project’s handling.

With supercar performance under the hood, the next goal was to make the Juke-R project handle like a Nissan GT-R. The chassis was reinforced with a purpose-built roll cage, providing the rigidity required to handle the speed and power the Juke-R now sports. Different suspension components were installed to compensate for the car’s weight and height – and even though the video description says its “subtly different”, we’re sure that this is far from the truth.

Check out the video of the Nissan Juke-R’s suspension and chassis getting overhauled after the break.

That is exactly what Ruf does. For 34 years, Alois Ruf has been working on Porsches. His process is so thorough, Porsche sends him bare shells of their cars, and everything is then put in place by Ruf technicians. Each car is thus tailor made for its new owner.

22 weeks after the little Nissan Juke crossover was first abducted, the team of modern day Doctor Frankensteins from Nissan Europe’s technical partner, RML, finally released this video of their outrageous creation, the mighty and insane Juke-R. Proudly displaying their hard work before submitting the super crossover to rounds of shakedown and testing, the video reveals the Juke’s transformation, which is most noticeable when the engine lets out that loud and responsive signature GT-R bark.

Kia has just announced at the LA Auto Show that they’ve teamed up with Kinetic Motorsports to campaign a pair of Optima SXs in World Challenge. The pair of race cars will join the Rio 5-Door B-Spec that debuted at the SEMA Show earlier this month as part of Kia’s racing efforts with Kinetic Motorsports.

This year’s LA Auto Show will give us a look at the Subaru BRZ Concept, and even though we don’t even have finalized details on the upcoming vehicle, Subaru has already announced that the BRZ will represent them in the 2012 Super GT Championship in Japan. Obviously Subaru has a long heritage of racing in Japan, and the BRZ will compete in the GT300 class replacing the current STI Legacy B4.

Honda is moving ahead with plans to deliver a higher performance version of the CR-Z. In fact, according to a report by Temple of Vtec, CR-Z project leader Norio Tomobe-san has confirmed the car is already in development.

Infiniti’s FX is clearly evolving to become a real winner, first with the Sebastian Vettel Edition and now world-famous Mercedes-Benz tuner turning their attention to the Japanese crossover. It’s rather surprising to see Lorinser working on a Japanese vehicle, with their portfolio of tuning programs almost strictly covering only Mercedes vehicles.

High End Performance is known around the nation for building some of the world’s top show cars while running a shop that supplies some of the rarest and highest quality parts around. But what sets them apart from the crowd is their custom, hand-crafted wide body kits that can see on many of their show cars. This matte orange Nissan GTR was spotted in the Eneos booth, and is arguably the best creation to come out of High End to date.

While perusing through the Central Hall of this year’s massive SEMA Show, we came across this little gem tucked away in AirREX’s booth. There was a bit of information that was lost in translation, but AirREX is an air suspension manufacturer out of Taiwan and decided to use a Honda Insight to show off their product.

Lexus chose the world’s largest aftermarket expo to reveal its new GS350 F-sport. Debuting at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, the F-Sport model adds a new aero kit, upgraded wheels and a modified suspension, plus there are some bigger changes inside.

Find out exactly what by watching the video after the jump:

Jon Sibal’s Scion iQ won this year’s edition of the Scion Tuner Challenge, beating out a mid-engined iQ as well as a race prepped example to take home the prize.

We’ve seen sneak preview shots of Enjuku Racing’s Hyundai Genesis project, and now it’s sitting happily at the BC Racing booth showing off its supercharged LS1 engine swap. The swapped Genesis is sitting on a new set of white BC Racing  wheels sporting a perfectly aggressive fitment. The LS1 swap is clearly executed well, sporting a Chase Bays wiring harness and a fancy supercharger.

This year’s SEMA awards were announced Wednesday morning, with the Chevrolet Camaro, Ford F-Series and Jeep Wrangler taking home the awards for Hottest Car, Truck and 4×4 SUV respectively.

Another day, another Toyota FT-86 leak. A concept development that has received more facelifts and nose jobs than most production cars get in a whole life cycle, today we reveal one more.

The Scion iQ has still yet to go on sale, but Scion came out in full force with their new subcompact, presenting a multitude of concepts aimed at all corners of the aftermarket segment.

The Hyundai Veloster is arguably this year’s hot sport compact, and Hyundai came out in full force with a collection of Velosters covering both the “show” and “go” ends of the spectrum.

Debuting along side the production GS350 F-Sport today at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas is a wildly modified version of the very same car, built by long-time Lexus tuning partner Five Axis. Painted Glacier White it’s in stark contrast to the subtle silver-gray of the factory F-Sport model on display. The real drama, however, comes from a custom widebody, with Slate Gray accents, huge Five:AD S5:F alloy wheels and some truly massive exhaust pipes.

With plenty of dressed-up tuner cars on display at the Lexus booth at this year’s SEMA Show, the real star is the GS350 F-Sport. It might not have any power adders, but with 306-hp and a 0-60 time of 5.7 seconds it doesn’t really need any anyway.

Kia has unveiled four custom models at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas today, with each car featuring a different sport as its theme. A custom Soul, built by West Coast Customs, is inspired by Michelle Wie, Kia’s official golf ambassador. A Rio 5-Door was built in partnership with Antenna featuring a Retro Surf theme. A custom Forte 5-Door “Hat Trick” sports a hockey theme while Kia continues its Blake Griffin collaboration with a “Slam Dunk” Optima Hybrid, also built by West Coast Customs.

As promised Kia has unveiled its Rio B-Spec race car at the 2011 SEMA Show today, based on the brand’s all-new Rio 5-Door sub-compact.

After taking the championship in the Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge street tuner challenge this year, Kia is announcing further commitments to the world of motorsports.

It’s plenty of fun even with just 100-hp, but Mazda isn’t called the Zoom Zoom brand for nothing. Revealed today at the 2011 SEMA Show is a tuner car concept dubbed the Mazda2 Turbo. Rather than some bolt-on turbocharger this sub-compact gets a complete swap from its big-brother, the Mazdaspeed3.

As expected, the focus on Honda’s SEMA Show display this year is its all-new 2012 Civic – the Si in particular. Rather than display dozens of cars like in the past, Honda has chosen just a select few tuners to create the most wildly modified Civics they could dream up.

The 2011 SEMA Show isn’t officially open yet but we’ve obtained a few snap shots of one of the two Honda‘s being kept under wraps. Called the 2012 Civic Si HFP this more hard-edged version of the new Si might just be the car enthusiasts were hoping for.

It might not be the wildest car at Honda‘s 2011 SEMA Show booth, but the Honda Factory Performance (HFP) Accord Coupe V6 Concept might be the closes to reality.

Continuing with a look at some of the “themed” pickup trucks on display at this year’s SEMA show, we bring you the Toyota Oakley Surf Tacoma.

Toyota has teamed up with DC Shoes and West Coast Customs to build a one-of-a-kind Ultimate Motocross Truck, set to debut at this year’s SEMA Show. Based on a Toyota Tundra full-size pickup, the build team used feedback from various Motocross athletes to help create a truck that every motocross rider needs to make an event trip easier.

Subaru of America will be showing off several of their record setting race cars alongside custom Subaru Performance Tuning models at this year’s SEMA Show. Also at the Subaru booth this year will be the Isle of Man record setting WRX STI making its US debut alongside David Higgins’ 2011 Rally America Champion WRX STI.

Toyota’s Yaris will be the next B-Spec Club Racer, joining the likes of the Honda Fit, Mazda Mazda2 and more recently, the Kia Rio,  Fiat 500 and Ford Fiesta. Set to debut at this year’s SEMA Show, it’ll be the first race car built for competition in the United States from the next-generation 2012 Yaris SE.

Meguiar’s will be heading to SEMA this year with this custom two-tone Lexus CT 200h. While it’s not exactly the crazy project one would expect from a SEMA display car, the 2012 CT 200h serves a purpose as a proper marketing tool for Meguiar’s.

Every year at the SEMA Show, Scion always impresses with a fleet of customized models from the world’s top builders. This year will be no different, as a trio of customized iQs will face off in this year’s Tuner Challenge, while Scion will also show off a custom iQ from Cartel, a tC from Gruppe S/Dynamic Autosports, an xB from 686, and the xB from the Scion Canada Tuner Challenge.

We really have to give a hand to Rhys Millen Racing and Hyundai this year. In an age where everything somehow finds a way to leak onto the Internet, this is the first we’re hearing of the project that RMR is currently working on for this year’s SEMA Show.

Hyundai has released a teaser video revealing that Rhys is planning something extra special for this year’s show. Over the past four years, RMR and Hyundai have partnered up to create one-of-a-kind show-stopping vehicles, and it looks like this year they want it to be the biggest and best yet.

Make sure to check out the video after the jump and stay tuned for SEMA Show coverage starting here, Tuesday, Nov. 1st.

Lexus will be bringing a fine collection of vehicles to this year’s SEMA Show, and AutoGuide has compiled a guide to all the ones we’re expecting to see. In addition to the previously mentioned GS 350 F-Sport, Lexus will also be showing off a custom GS F Sport and CT 200h by Five Axis, a custom IS 350C by VIP Auto Salon, a custom LX 570 by JT Grey Racing, while Lexus themselves will be bringing F Sport variants of their CT 200h, IS 350, and IS 250C models to go along with their IS F.

As promised Lexus will debut its new F-Sport GS350 model at the upcoming SEMA Show in Las Vegas. Taking the all-new 2013 GS sedan, the F-Sport package adds, um, sport, by bolting a long list of “racing-inspired” components.

ARK Performance has been hard at work on their SEMA 2011 Project Hyundai Veloster, and now finished photos of the vehicle have popped up online at Veloster.org. The theme of the project was to build a rally-inspired Veloster, featuring a custom twin-scroll turbo setup giving it 210-hp while its bright green and flat gray paint scheme gives it the aggressive look it needs.

With the 2011 SEMA Show just around the corner, we’ve been getting fed tons of teasers and sneak peeks of finished projects that will be making their way to the big aftermarket expo in Las Vegas. But forget teasers, here’s the full reveal of Fox Marketing’s 2012 Honda Civic Si, boasting a wickedly clean widebody and packing over 450-hp thanks to Full-Race’s turbo kit.

The guys over at Tjin Edition followed up the teaser of their two SEMA Ford projects with this rendering of their Honda Civic Sedan project from Gurnade Design Firm. This will be the fourth Honda Tjin Edition has built for SEMA and this time around, Tjin Edition teamed up with Wraptivo, Daley Visual, Gurnade, Rotiform, Function and Form and Baer.

So what is it that makes the Internet just so awesome? Well probably because without it, we’d never be able to witness the interesting sight of Honda‘s hybrid CR-Z attempting to go drifting. The footage was shot out at Heide-Park Soltau in Germany, with a “Ken Block Fan” behind the wheel, doing his best impression of the infamous driver behind the wheel of a FWD hybrid.

There is also a little bit of an attempt at comedy in the video, but all-in-all, it’s worth a watch. Even if all you’re trying to do is reassure yourself (and your friends) that there are crazier and weirder people on this planet. And it goes without saying, don’t try to go and do this if you own a CR-Z. It’ll just end badly, seriously.

Check out the video after the break.

[Source: Jalopnik]

Along with the debut of a new B-Spec budget race car, Kia is looking to showcase its updated 2012 Soul at the 2011 SEMA Show.

After first announcing plans to build the car, Nissan has released a series of videos documenting the build process of what it calls “the world’s fastest crossover.”

There’s a new tuning company opening up shop in Japan and it’s looking to grab some immediate headlines with it’s version of the Nissan GT-R, sporting some of the most radical styling we have seen yet on the Japanese supercar. The company, which goes by the name Bensopra, is set to debut the new race car inspired machine at the Tokyo Auto Salon in January.