I was on vacation and my rental was a Nissan.

[louiegz]

Well, you haven’t heard from me much lately because I was on vacation. My better half and I took a cruse on the QM2 for a six day crossing of the Atlantic from NY to South Hampton, England. We hopped on a plain and flew over to Shannon, Ireland for 8 days. I get my rental and I wind up getting a Nissan that we don't have in the states, a Nissan Premera. I figured you guys might like to check out a right hand drive Nissan that’s not in the states. This car is smaller than an Altima with a 1.6 or a 1.8 liter inline 4, a five speed and it has all the gauges on the center of the dash. Yep, no gauges behind the wheel. That took a little getting use to besides the whole driving on the other side of the road thing. It also had a color screen on a center pod like the M that has a rear view camera and a nice trip computer. As far as how it drives, it does fine for the kind of driving you do in Ireland. It handles the curves well, but not too firm because of the poor quality of some of the roads they have. The car's power isn't great, but if you keep the revs right, it moves ok. The interior is roomy and was comfortable on long drives. I should know, the trip computer said that we were in the car for over 28 hours and drove about 760 miles. The best thing that this car had was the mileage. I got over 36 MPG. Not bad. You need the good mileage with the price of gas as you see in my fill up picture, and that was a ¾ tank. The funny thing that I also notice that the cheapest gas you could get was 95 octane fuel. In fact the filler cap said the car required 95 octane. I'm surprised that the 4 banger runs on such high octane. I’ll tell you one thing that sucks about this car is the car, the price. 23,000 euros. That’s $27,500. Cars are expensive over there. All in all, we had a good time over there and I can't wait for our next vacation.



















I do silly things when I had one too many pints at the pub.





By the way, if you want to see something a little more exciting, here's a nice Skyline I saw in Galway.

[FarFetched]

Great styling, not as gray and boring as here !Cheers!

[JDMEnthused]

hmm that new Primera is pretty nice.. i love the electronic display.. similar to Toyota's stuff over here in the States.. i LOVE that V-spec though.. damn English heh. ( kidding )

[Jesda]

Dude, you backed over some crazy foreigner.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Kind of an ugly little car.

I can't figure out why they stopped bringing the Primera over here...I think it'd be a very popular car, especially with the fuel economy craze.

I don't know how you could drive a car with the center-mount instruments. That is one of the stupidest ideas ever concieved.

[Rex]

Thanks for the write up/info and the pic of the Skyline .

I have to say, that's a rathering boring looking car ... but I think that's what it's supposed to be - simple, economical transportation.

[gloucester Q]

nice to see you chose the stickshift. i was there a few years ago and that was one of the most memorable bits of the trip--driving on the wrong side of the road and shifting with the wrong hand. i rented something akin to a toyota matrix and it turned to be a lot like your nissan--underpowered, fun if the revs were high, and thankfully, miserly on gas in the end. what towns did you hit up? we did dingle, kilkenny, dublin, & galway.

[louiegz]

You went there too. Yea, Ireland is a great place to go and drive. Stick shift is almost required there with the kind of driving you do there. The hills, the curves, and those under powered engines. I cant imagine driving that car there with an automatic. I can see driving my Q over there would be a nightmare on those small roads. Not only that, we dont have a stick shift car any more and I really miss it. This is our second trip to Ireland. We flew into Shannon, good place to get use to driving on the left side because there's not much traffic as in Dublin, then we drove to Galway, Donagal, Sligo and Belleek. First time we flew into Shannon and went to Galway, Cork, Kilarny, Kinsale, Waterford, Cork, other places I cant remember and Dublin, and flew out of there. I highly recommend anyone to go. It's some of the most beautiful landscape that you will ever see, and the roads are fun to drive.

[pdqwrx]

We used to get the Primera, it was called a G20

[BlackBirdVQ]

Primera was our G20, previous generations where called P10 (91-96) and P11( 1998-2002). They where all powered by a SR20DE motor with 140HP, where in other countries they had other smaller engines that made anywhere from 80HP Diesels to 150HP Primera GTs with a hotter version of the SR20DE. P12 model you rented was avalible with a SR20VE motor in the 20V version with a 6spd manual and 207HP. Its pretty fast and handles really good. I got a 93 G20 with a SR20DET swap, GT28RS turbo, larger injectors etc- it moves pretty good with little over 320WHP.

[Rex]

... I got a 93 G20 with a SR20DET swap, GT28RS turbo, larger injectors etc- it moves pretty good with little over 320WHP.

Oh, we've GOT to see pics of this .

[elwesso]

Cool stuff Lou....

[BlackBirdVQ]

Here is my P10, its a older picture- its sitting lower now on a set of KYB AGX and Tein S-Tech springs.

[BlackBirdVQ]

I bought this G20 off Ebay for 800 bux, and I bought my Q45 off Ebay for 900 bux- my only Infinitis I owned and both of them are Ebay deals. Both needed engine work- I swapped in a low mileage SR20DET that I bought from SOKO here in Chicago.

[BlackBirdVQ]

My Previous 500WHP setup- Custom home made exhaust manifold, TiAL 40mm wastegate, Garrett T4 Turbo (none of this small T3/T4 bs), 740cc injectors, Z32 MAF, Walbro fuel pump, JDM BlueBird SR20DET ECU with S-AFC II controlling my A/F. Very crude engine management- but worked just fine. Wheel spin in 3rd at 80MPH was still a problem on stock 14" wheels and some cheapo tires the car came with.

[louiegz]

I can imagine with all the power to the front wheels, you must have had a $hitload of torque steer. Must be fun though to blow other cars away.