Editor’s pick July 2025 | Nissan Ariya NISMO … or Nis-no?

Reviews Editor Dan Trent writes…

”Bizarrely this tale starts not with a Nissan but a Renault, and a news story I was writing on the bonkers sounding Turbo 3e version of the Renault 5 I’m running as a long-term test car . Old petrolhead habits die hard, and although this hot 5 is electric the curiosities of its triple-motor set-up and promise of drift-tastic handling had me excited. Plus, it looks ace.
“Then something weird happened. Mere moments after posting the story on the Renault an email landed from Nissan offering me an exclusive go with a secret pre-production NISMO version of the electric Ariya crossover, with wild promises of cornering power greater than the NISMO-enhanced GT-R. Knowing Nissan and Renault share tech could it be that Nissan’s tuning division had somehow nicked the same three-motor system to turn the Ariya family SUV into drift monster to be sneaked to market ahead of their French colleagues as part of some internal rivalry?

“Long story short but … no. When the Ariya NISMO arrived it turned out to be an underwhelming bodykit-and-big-wheels dress-up job with ridiculously stiff suspension. Nothing about it had me wanting to test the theory it could out-corner a GT-R, put it that way.
“Keen to restore my faith in NISMO’s proud heritage I went tyre kicking into the Autotrader listings. And, no, a Juke NISMO wasn’t going to cut it. I needed the real thing. Maybe a GT-R NISMO?

“Maybe not a GT-R NISMO. Not at these six-figure prices. But what would the £56,630 for the Ariya NISMO score me from the wider choice of regular GT-Rs? If, indeed, ‘regular’ is ever a word you could use for a car more than living up to its Godzilla nickname and fearsome reputation.

“There was a halfway house ‘engineered by NISMO’ Track Edition version of the GT-R, with some of the suspension and bodywork upgrades but slightly more realistic price. NISMO enough to wear the badge. But not as rare or expensive. I remember a suitably wild experience driving one on track in the pouring rain and the memory still gives me goosebumps. Picking one out from the healthy number of GT-Rs on Autotrader took some time but there’s one of the earlier Track Editions within budget and I’ve proved my point you can get a proper NISMO for the price of the somewhat underwhelming Ariya version. OK, sure, a GT-R is going to be somewhat more committed to buy and run. A lot more. And probably just as uncomfortably stiff. But if you’re going to put up with that spine pummelling ride you may as well be in a NISMO worthy of the name.”
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