It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly nine years since Carlos Ghosn made his arrival in Tokyo, the multi-pedigreed gaijin who was going to show the Japanese how to run their auto industry. Dispatched by Renault to take over the troubled Asian automaker Nissan, Ghosn outlined an aggressive – to many, outrageous – set of plans to turn the dying Japanese marque around.

Now, almost a decade later, few question Ghosn’s pronouncements, and with good reason. Sure, there’ve been a few hiccups along the way, but these days, Nissan is one of the world’s healthiest and most profitable auto companies. It delivers financial returns only Porsche can rival. And combined with its French alliance partner, the Nissan-Renault juggernaut last year sold a combined 3.7 million cars and trucks, with seemingly little reason to believe it’s about to lose stride.

Those are strong words for a journalist by nature skeptical, but then again, I’m also wrapping up three days of meetings with senior Nissan executives, combined with an opportunity to drive somewhere north of 50 different Nissan and Infiniti brand products from around the world.

The program, dubbed Nissan 360, has provided an unusually candid, close-up look at the company’s products and strategies. And I mean candid, with several executives offering insight into the less-than-stellar launch of the big Titan pickup, one of a few setbacks the automaker has experienced in recent years.

(The Titan, you may know, will continue, though its next iteration will be based upon Chrysler’s big Ram, and will be built for Nissan by the U.S. maker. The next full-sized Infiniti QX will be built in Japan, while it’s still unclear whether the future Nissan Armada will continue to be produced in Canton, Mississippi, or overseas. That Southern plant will now be used as a base for Nissan’s aggressive plans for the light commercial vehicle market.)

What’s impressive about the global Nissan lineup is its “diversity,” in the terse explanation of design chief Shiro Nakamura. Under Ghosn, the automaker has slashed the number of vehicle “architectures” – what used to be called platforms – it uses. There are now just five for passenger cars and crossovers. Yet the visual distinction is enormous. Consider that a flood of products, including the Nissan Versa, Note, Cube (the little crossover shown above), Livina, and Bluebird Selfi – never mind several Renault offerings - come off the same B-platform.

Why does that matter? Because by sharing common components among many different models, Nissan can sharply reduce parts costs – and increase manufacturing flexibility. But Shiro-san’s team makes sure each of these individual models meets the desires of each regional market. It’s the antithesis of the look-alike, or badge-engineered, product strategy that got Detroit in so much trouble back in the 1980s.

Ghosn’s fanatic focus on cost, meanwhile, is helping Nissan weather the potentially huge crisis triggered by the current run-up in oil prices. True, it’s struggling a bit in the truck market right now, “But we make more money on a [minicar] like Versa than some folks make on their big pickups,” suggested VP Larry Dominique. We’d love to see the numbers, but if he’s on target, it means Nissan should do quite well, thank you, even with consumers around the world downsizing fast.

Don’t expect Nissan to displace its archrival Toyota any time soon. There’s a healthy and much-needed respect, even fear, of the bigger maker’s assets and capabilities. But Nissan isn’t setting back and letting Toyota dominate, much as Ford long relished its No. 2 status in the United States.

That’s most apparent in Nissan’s admittedly late push into green machines. The maker had to sidle up to Toyota to license the rival’s hybrid technology, used in the nearly invisible Altima Hybrid. But a completely new HEV system will debut by decade’s end. And that’s only the beginning. Nissan is betting big on pure electric power, something I will touch on in another report from the Nissan 360 conference.

With the Infiniti brand finally staging its global rollout, the next few years will be challenging and promising ones for Nissan. As the current oil crisis underscores, things have a way of changing fast – and unpredictably – and Nissan’s long-term success is by no means guaranteed, but if the Nissan 360 program is any indication, it suggests the company is clearly on the right track.

Have you got the stuff? Sure, you know how to pose. You can slam the throttle when the light turns green. And you can quote torque and horsepower with the best. But can you hold your own where it really matters?

If you think the answer is yes, you might want to sign up for the 2008 Audi Sports Car Experience. Based at the grueling Infineon Raceway, in Sonoma, just north of San Francisco, the program has been designed by Audi and its partner, Emotive, to deliver a “hands-on driving experience…for the sports car enthusiast.” Serious ones only need apply, considering the high-speeds and sharp corners at the 2.5-mile track, with its 160-foot elevation changes..

The program offers track time in some of Audi’s most aggressive new S and RS models, including both the S4 sedan and S5 coupe, notes Scott Keogh, the automaker’s chief U.S. marketing officer. “The Audi Sportcar Experience allows participants to test and sharpen their driving skills and push our cars in a controlled environment. There is no better way to demonstrate the foundation of this company than behind the wheel and on the track.”

The program will operate year-round, and the adventurous can sign up for a variety of different packages, from a half-day introductory course, at $695, to the $3,495 two-day package that sits you behind the wheel of an R8 sports car.

For more information, check out www.audidrivingexperience.com.

We were thrilled to hear that Nissan would be previewing an assortment of new products at its Nissan 360 conference, in Lisbon, Portugal, this week. Indeed, we got a look at several new products, including the Nissan EA2 concept, which we previewed here on TheCarConnection.com yesterday.

But we weren't prepared for what was to come when the Japanese maker's mischevious global design director, Shiro Nakamura, teased us with a pair of additional previews. Indeed, this made have been the first time we saw the veil drop at a product "unveiling."

So, what we have are these admittedly less-than-wonderful grab shots of two new products Shiro-san promises we'll see more of later in the year. The one on top might remind Star Wars fans of Han Solo, frozen in (red) carbonite. But from what little we can gather, it's a birdseye view of a new Infiniti sports car design.

As for the second shot, if you strain your eyes, you'll just make out the vague, silk-covered outline of what looks just possibly, perhaps, maybe like a next-generation Nissan Z-car, complete with large wheels and tires, long hood, steeply raked hood and short roof. (Like we said, you'll need to really strain your eyes.

We're hoping to get a bit more, but for now, we'd love to get your thoughts on what we've got here.

The worsening U.S. economy is forcing General Motors to slash production of its big pickups and SUVs. It will trim operations at four key truck plants, reducing production by a whopping 143,000 vehicles. Even barring further cutbacks – which industry observers fear could follow – those plants will produce 15 percent fewer vehicles this year than in 2007.

Making matters worse, GM is facing a series of labor problems that could cripple other assembly operations – on top of an ongoing labor dispute at a key supplier that has already shuttered 30 GM factories.

The latest production cuts come as little surprise to anyone watching recent sales trends. The worsening U.S. economy is hitting the auto industry especially hard, and overall new vehicle sales seem likely to plunge by perhaps a million units below recent peaks. Complicating matters, with fuel prices setting one record after another, more and more motorists are rethinking what to buy. Many potential buyers are either downsizing their pickup and SUV purchases or staying out of the light truck market entirely.

"With rising fuel prices, a softening economy, and a downward trend on current and future market demand for full-size trucks, a significant adjustment was needed to align our production with market realities," Troy Clarke, president GM North America, said in a prepared statement.

It’s turning into a bad year for GM. Even before the latest move, the automaker had been forced to cut or reduce production at 30 plants, the result of a more than two-month strike at the key supplier American Axle. A spokesperson for the parts manufacturer says that progress has been made in recent days, as the result of talks with the United Auto Workers Union. But there is no indication a settlement is imminent.

Making matters worse, GM is facing the threat of its own labor trouble at plants making its mid-size and crossover vehicles – which are actually gaining ground in the current economic crunch – and some of its own parts. The automaker and the UAW settled on a broad, national contract last year, but several union locals have so far failed to secure agreements covering their own, specific factories. That includes an assembly line in Kansas City producing the popular new Chevrolet Malibu, as well as a line in Michigan making the surprise hit, the Buick Enclave, a crossover/SUV.

So far, union officials have chosen to keep bargaining, but walkouts could come in short order if no settlement is reached, further crippling GM just as it had hoped to regain momentum in the passenger car and crossover segments.

What’s next for Kirk Kerkorian, the maverick billionaire, who has touched off a wave of speculation following his plan to snap up 20 million shares of Ford Motor Co. stock?

It’s not the reclusive octogenarian’s first foray into Detroit. In the mid-1990s, Kerkorian built up a major stake in Chrysler Corp., then launched a bitter but ultimately unsuccessful effort to buy the smallest of the Big Three automakers. The hostile takeover attempt was one of the reasons Chrysler management subsequently decided to merge with Germany’s Daimler-Benz AG – a deal that unwound in 2007.

Several years ago, Kerkorian amassed holdings in General Motors, then pushed the company – at the time, in serious financial trouble – to study a possible alliance with the Japanese/French partnership, Nissan/Renault. GM ultimately rejected the proposal and Kerkorian decided to sell off his holdings.

Now Kerkorian is eyeing Ford. But how much influence he can wield is unclear. The heirs of company founder Henry Ford currently hold just 4 percent of the automaker’s stock – but because that is a unique class of shares, they have 40 percent of the voting rights. That’s enough, most analysts believe, to prevent a hostile takeover.

Still, Kerkorian could demand one or more seats on the Ford board, as he did at Chrysler and GM, and try to influence its strategy. He could, for example, seek to drive Ford into some sort of alliance with another automaker. In years past, many believed Ford would wind up part of the Nissan/Renault alliance, though earlier this year, that Japanese/French group announced several deals with Chrysler.

For now, the Las Vegas-based Kerkorian’s Tracinda Corp. is saying only that it is impressed with Ford’s ongoing turnaround efforts – the company announced a surprise, $100 million profit for the first quarter, though its troubled North American operations remained in the red.

"Tracinda believes that Ford management under the leadership of Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally will continue to show significant improvements in its results going forward," Tracinda said in the statement.

The good news for Ford is that investors have at least initially taken Kerkorian’s announcement as a positive sign. Ford’s stock soared on Monday, and some observers believe it has plenty of upside in the weeks and months to come.