Nissan is building on its extraordinary success with the Juke and Qashqai crossovers by returning to the family hatch mainstream in 2014. A stylish new VW Golf rival is already deep into development – and it will be designed, engineered and built here in the UK.
Nissan’s executive vice president of product planning, Andy Palmer, told auto Express: “There is a gap in our range and the idea of the new car is to keep our customers within the brand.
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“This will catch buyers moving up from a Juke, who can then buy a Qashqai if they need more space. Eventually, the idea is to get them into an Infiniti.”
The name is yet to be revealed, but Palmer dropped a series of hints. “It won’t use the Almera name, you can be sure of that,” he said. “But it will be familiar.”
As our exclusive images show, the Golf rival will feature design cues from the Invitation concept, including the sharp headlights, the ‘squash line’ crease in the flanks and the curvy tail-lights.
For the interior, the focus will be on class-leading quality. Nissan admits that this is the only area that lets the current Qashqai down, and it’s not intending to make the same mistake again.