AFAIK it was a design concept by Dallara to be the new indycar, when it lost out they started shopping it around and Nissan picked it up and threw their motor in it.
I just think it's interesting in that it is so much less powerfull and uses less fuel than the cars it competes with. it looks retarded and when they were talking up the efficiency I couldn't have cared less, but when they said how fast it was it's kinda like an underdog story. Which is why it was so sad to see it get pinged off the track like a pool que by a car 3 times it's size.