Nismo and Williams get jiggy

Nismo - Nissan's legendary tuning arm - has today confirmed it will team up with British engineering outfit Williams to co-develop fast road cars.

This, potentially, could be very good news: Williams has a stellar heritage of involvement in fast road cars, from the Clio Williams of 1993 to last year's kyboshed Jaguar C-X75. And Nismo, too, knows a thing or two about putting together a fast car. The fruits of their collective labours could be spectacular.

Quite what form those fruits will take remains unclear, though: all Nissan and Williams will tell us is that their first co-developed road car will arrive next year.

It's fair to assume that it'll be pretty full-on, however. Nissan says it chose Williams for its expertise in aero and material science, and recent reports have suggested Nismo is keen to release a full-fat performance car to complement its more mainstream offerings - the Juke and 370Z (above).

Williams has particular expertise in hybrid technology, developing the 900bhp petrol-electric system in the C-X75, as well as the flywheel modules for Audi's R18 E-Tron Le Mans car and the Porsche GT3 R hybrid racer.

So might we see a bonkers petrol-electric version of, say, the GT-R next year? It'd certainly make sense: the McLaren P1, LaFerrari and Porsche 918 will soon demonstrate that hybrid tech is no longer the preserve of Priuses and Insights.

Or will Nismo and Williams cook up something entirely unexpected? Cast your votes now...