AS THE lull takes hold after a record-breaking number of launches in the past 18 months, a number of normally staid Japanese manufacturers are displaying a sudden fetish for leather and kitting out their cars accordingly in an effort to inject some spiceinto the market.
Acura is pushing television promotion of its new leather edition Vigor, while Nissan is busy parading its '93 Cefiro, clad for this season in leather. Underneath, little has changed in the middle-aged Cefiro which still offers meaty promise.
To look at however, the Nissan Cefiro is not a particularly inspiring number and does little to ignite a burning desire to get behind the wheel and behave like a Formula One maniac.
As with its Skyline stablemate though, where the car's stylists have aesthetically fallen flat on their faces, the powerplant boys have come up trumps with a 2.0 litre engine that is well ahead of the pack.
The RB20DE six-cylinder in-line DOHC workhorse throws out 152PS of output at 6,000 rpm and 182 nm of torque at 5,200 rpm. This is only half the story. Coupled to the straight-six is an unusual automatic transmission, offering five forward gears, rather than the more standard four-speed set-up.
In addition to an overdrive, the transmission's rpm settings can be switched to automatic for a more economic change-up, a higher ratio for a snappier take-off or kept in hold for total manual control.