Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., last week kicked off a new era for Nismo, confirming it as Nissan’s exclusive global performance road car and motorsport brand and officially opening the new Nismo global headquarters and development center in Yokohama, Japan.

Nismo is already well-known to motorsports and performance car enthusiasts in Japan and to millions of global gaming enthusiasts. Now, Nismo is poised for accelerated global impact, enhancing Nissan’s reputation for innovation and excitement with a new line-up of sporty Nissan road cars.

In a special ceremony, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn declared the new headquarters open and explained how Nismo will play a more prominent role for the company’s performance car and motorsport activities.

“Nismo will bring new excitement to the Nissan portfolio with a broader range of affordable and innovative performance models for more markets and more people,” said Mr. Ghosn. “Whether it’s a small car or a sports car, if it’s wearing the Nismo badge it offers something special - quality, functionality, and efficiency, with Nismo’s distinctive styling, sporty handling and dynamic performance capabilities.”

The first new Nissan road car to get the Nismo treatment, the Juke Nismo, is already on sale in Europe and Japan and launches in the U.S. in the second quarter of this year.

A new version of the 370Z Nismo for European markets is the next Nismo road car, which made its world debut earlier this month and builds on the platform of Nissan’s most popular and accessible sports car.

Nissan is promising a rapid pace of introduction of even more Nismo models, at least one model every year during the Nissan Power88 period, encompassing the breadth of the Nissan road car range. This will include the flagship of Nissan’s performance and technology, the GT-R.

The new headquarters facility allows the Nismo team to be co-located in one place, bringing together the functional areas for Nismo’s key activities and technical and competition expertise under one roof.