In the early 1900s, cubism was the avant-garde movement pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. Sadly, this provocative artistic trend was quickly rendered obsolete by the invention of the cardboard box, an art form later perfected and made affordable by the movement that would become known as Federal Express.

When it comes to green cars, the popular play these days is the Hail Mary, a long, high toss down the field for maximum-efficiency yardage and maximum brand polishing. Cost: irrelevant. Production: atomic-level, to hold down inevitable initial losses. Every automaker has a slightly different attack plan. Toyota has a new and improved Prius coming next year. Honda has a hyperexotic FCX hydrogen fuel-cell car as well as a new Insight, a Prius-fighting hybrid that will appear next year. And GM will unplug its Volt plug-in hybrid in 2010, the same year Nissan plans to debut a pure electric vehicle for the Japanese market with global sales perhaps by 2012.

"When I get hot, I go topless." So sayeth the license plate frame of many a convertible. Though it's typically employed as a double entendre, the cheeky adage actually describes the new 2010 Nissan 370Z Roadster quite well. The new Z Roadster is making its world debut on the eve of the 2009 New York auto show alongside the 2009 Nismo 370Z.

Nismo, Nissan's in-house high-performance division, has been churning out factory-tuned enthusiast rides for more than two decades now in Japan and has recently been gaining a foothold here in the U.S. Back in 2007, Nissan offered its first complete U.S.-spec Nismo model based on the last-generation 350Z, and its latest Z-based creation is the 2009 Nismo 370Z.

The Nissan Frontier has been a solid contender in the midsize-truck segment since it was introduced over a decade ago. Not a whole lot has changed for the Frontier over the years, but then, not a lot has needed to change. The Frontier has been a strong performer on- and off-road since its introduction, and Nissan continues to offer truck buyers a good alternative if they don't need a full-size truck or a V-8.

As a staff, we love fast four-doors. From BMW's M5 to Mitsubishi's Lancer Evo to Chevy's Cobalt SS, if it has room for at least four and some pretense of speed, you can bet it never gets left overnight in our parking garage. This is why when Nissan announced that its seventh-generation Maxima signaled the return of the "four-door sports car," we knew we had to have one.

Infiniti's FX is not a practical vehicle. It doesn't hold three rows of people, can carry only 25 cubic feet of cargo behind the second row, and has minimal off-road capability. No, it isn't practical, but it isn't supposed to be. It has tons of power and handles corners almost as well as a car and also provides that coveted SUV high-seating position. It's a sport sedan with cargo space.

For their all-new 2009 Nissan 370Z coupe, Nissan engineers and designers have infused a heavy dose of the "everyday sports car" concept begun by the car's forefather -- the iconic Datsun 240Z -- into its latest two-passenger ride. The 370Z is making its much-anticipated world debut at the Los Angeles auto show this week, and Nissan has finally released all the details.

Nissan has responded angrily to Porsche’s claims that it faked its astonishing GT-R Nurburgring lap time, and has suggested that Porsche’s test drivers need to ‘get a bit quicker’. Back in May, Nissan reported that its production GT-R had lapped the Nurburgring Nordschleife in an near-unbelievable 7m29s in the hands of its test driver Tochio Suzuki: a full three seconds quicker than a Porsche GT2, and one of the fastest-ever production times on the ‘Ring.

Nissan has tried to make its GT-R unmodifiable, but conversely this appears to have simply inspired a number of aftermarket tuners to go even more crazy on the GT-R's ass. This is Japanese-based tuners Wald International's vision of Nissan's not-a-Skyline.