360 degrees

Almost two years and eight million dollars in the making. No, I am not talking about another of Carlos Ghosn's ideas for developing an exclusive model for the Kurdish market and Armenia.

This is what Nissan spent on putting together an Olympian exercise in getting motoring journalists from all over the world to understand them and their plethora of products. It is Olympian in more ways than one.

Called the Nissan 360, the event is held every four years. The last time it was in the US, and this year it was in Portugal, in a sea-facing town called Cascais.

Sorry, I am keeping you from the car, but this is something which I have to tell you about to give a perspective. Basically what happens is that Nissan takes over the whole town and ships in all (in other words, ALL) the automobiles that wear the Nissan badge. A piddly thirty-odd cars? No, it includes commercial vehicles too.

Oh, and did I tell you that all the Infinitis were there as well? Then they fly in wave after wave of motoring journalists from across the world who drive whatever they want and speak to whichever top-ranking executive is available across two days. Most of the cars are driven on public roads, while they set up a gymkhana for the LCVs and a crazy 4x4 course at the nearby Estoril track.

However, we were not allowed to drive the visceral GT-R on public roads... we were given the whole Estoril circuit to literally lap it up! Actually, we were allotted only three laps each; just not enough to completely experience this giant-killing supercar.

I drove a couple of Infinitis