Nissan is to develop its next generation of panel vans as stand-alone models, rather than rebadging alliance partner Renault’s Trafics and Masters, also shared with General Motors Europe’s Opel and Vauxhall brands.
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The Renault/GME partnership remains unaffected: a GME spokesman told just-auto on Monday the automaker was committed to the deal at least through the lifetime of next generation models currently under development.
At the Hanover commercial vehicle show, Nissan displayed an NV200 compact van concept that, it said, “signals the first step in the brand’s move away from badge-engineered vans”.
LCV unit marketing chief Andy Palmer said Nissan planned “to make smarter use” of the alliance in for future vans.
“We’ll be introducing 13 all-new products in the next five years. We’ll still be sharing engines, transmissions, platforms and market intelligence.
“But the emphasis has changed. In 1999, we needed product for Europe. But now we have around 600,000 sales worldwide. The emerging markets are now driving our product development.”
Nissan is building LCV plants in India, China, Morocco and the US. This will drive Nissan’s annual global LCV sales up to more than 1m units in the next few years – twice the 2007 volume – and emerging markets will account for around 60% of that growth, Palmer said.
The Cabstar light truck will get a facelift early next year, with an improved interior, an optional automated manual gearbox and Euro 5-compliant diesel engines, with particulate filters. A dedicated conversion centre for specialist body options is being set up at the Madrid factory that builds the Cabstar.
Designer Ryoichi Kuraoka found an unlikely inspiration for the NV200 concept’s innovative demountable pod system.
“It’s based on Thunderbird 2, the one with the pod,” he said.
Kuraoka has been with Nissan since 1981 – his designs include the 1992 March/Micra hatchback – and he’s been a fan of the British puppet science-fiction series since the 1960s, when he saw episodes on Japanese TV. “I had the Tracey Island model too,” he said.
Cost rules out the ‘pod’ body, which slides out on rails and is supported by fold-down legs, but the NV200 will go into production early next year, when it replaces the Renault Kangoo-based Kubistar compact van in the Nissan range.
It will go on sale first in Japan next spring with European sales due before the end of 2009.
The name NV200 is part of a new branding philosophy for the Nissan LCV range, and was quietly introduced with the NP300 pick-up. (NP stands for ‘Nissan Pick-up’; NV, logically, for Nissan Van.)
The NV200 was designed for a wider global market. The European-designed Kubistar was too large for Japanese market tax breaks so the replacement is slightly smaller and based on the alliance B platform (Clio/Micra) rather than the C platform (Scenic/Kangoo).
Though it meets Japanese size restrictions – 1.7m wide and 1.85m high – it can still carry two Europallets.
