There's an iconic scene from the 2003 action movie Too Fast to Furious, a scene

beloved by gearheads. And it begins, naturally, with cars rolling up to a starting line.

Of course, it's a street race.

Looks like the streets of Miami, if I recall correctly.

That's our colleague, Sean McLean.

He covers the auto industry.

And there were very iconic cars from the 1990s in the early 2000s, and two in particular that I think

are relevant for our discussions. One is a candy pink convertible made by a Honda, an S-2000.

Whoa. All right, ladies! And then we also have the Nissan Skyline GTR nickname Godzilla

rolling down the street, puff and smoke out of its wheel wells, and shooting flames out the tailpipe.

And these are two of the most iconic vehicles of the street racing circuit from that period.

Honda versus Nissan locked in a high-octane street race.

Kind of like the rivalry they have in real life.

Two Japanese car giants selling similar cars to similar customers. Which is why, just before

Christmas, some news out of Japan was so surprising. We are following some breaking news this

morning. Japanese automakers, Honda and Nissan, have announced that they plan to merge.

That the deal goes through, this would make the companies the third largest automakers in the

world. If you were to boil down this story into one simple idea, what would that be?

I mean, I would say this boils down to money in pure desperation.

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Kate Linebaugh. It's Wednesday, January 8th.

Coming up on the show, what's behind the proposed merger of Nissan and Honda?

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