If you like your round automotive pegs to fit equally round holes, the Qashqai
from Nissan is not for you. Bizarre name aside — apparently, it is the name
of a wandering tribe — the car is part hatchback, part family saloon, with a
little bit of estate and “soft” roader (it can come with all-wheel drive)
thrown in for good measure.
Nissan’s marketing team has been hard at work on this one. Not only has it
scoured the world for a name no two people will pronounce the same
(cash-kai, apparently), it has also decided that it is “urban proof”.
Advertisements will feature the car triumphing on the cartoonishly tough
streets of an inner city somewhere near you.
None of which should detract from the fact that the Qashqai is not only a very
good car, but one that is crucial for Britain’s car-building industry.
Nissan has invested £230 million in its Sunderland plant to build the car,
with plans to make 100,000 a year in the North East. It will help to take
the plant’s total production to 400,000 a year, up from the present 330,000
annually. As well as securing 1,000 existing jobs, Nissan has taken on an
extra 200 staff to cope.
The company hopes to sell about 20,000 Qashqais a year in the UK, three
quarters of them two-wheel drive, a quarter with the All Mode 4 x 4 system.
The car, which goes on sale in March, comes with a choice of two petrol
engines (1.6-litre and 2.0-litre) and two diesel engines (1.5-litre and
2.0-litre) and is priced from £13,499 for the base model small-engined
petrol to £23,249 for the all-singing , all-dancing 4WD 2.0 diesel with
six-speed automatic transmission.
Nissan expects most cars sold — about 75 per cent — to go not to existing
Nissan customers, the easy sales route for car firms relying on loyalty, but
to be “conquest” sales — stealing buyers from other car firms.
It might work if reactions to the car on the style-conscious streets of
Barcelona, where the car is being launched this week, are anything to go by.
While in the car, and stuck in traffic, a ten-year old boy scooted over
through the jams, huge pack on his back, to touch the car, stick his head
through the driver’s window and, grinning, give a big thumbs-up, saying:
“New car? Good! Nice!” His safety-conscious friend, still on the pavement,
nodded, clearly agreeing. It looks as if it should be a rough, tough,
go-anywhere machine. In fact, the four-wheel drive system is strictly for
the road, to give greater grip in the wet or in snow. The system for the
most part runs only the front two wheels, then gradually and automatically
delivers more drive to the rear wheels as conditions worsen, up to a maximum
of 50 per cent drive to the rear.
With Qashqai, Nissan does not want the car seen as another go-anywhere
off-roader and so get mired into the anti-4 x 4 debate hampering 4 x 4
sales. The panoramic glass roof makes the car feel very light and airy
inside. You sit higher up than in a hatch or saloon and as a result get an
improved view of the road ahead. Even so, the high door lines make you feel
enclosed and safe. In the back, luggage space starts at 460 litres with all
the seats in place but expands to 1,513 litres with seats folded.
At 100mph, the 2.0-litre petrol is quiet, refined and relaxing. In Barcelona’s
rush-hour traffic the car’s “urban” credentials come to the fore. Without
being a 4 x 4 bully, the Qashqai is just beefy enough to win roadspace and
respect from other cars, all of which makes traffic-jam driving easier. The
six-speed gearbox is smooth, although drivers used to five- speed gearboxes
might have trouble finding sixth. And being a Nissan, it is well built; you
feel that everything fits as it should.
Nissan has come a long way since cars such as the early Almera that ran the
risk of boring people to death. Its biggest-selling cars have always been
reliable, if bland. Now perhaps it has a car that, as well as carrying on
its traditional strengths of dependability, might also have the sort of
urban funk and “street cred” to do those strengths justice.
Specification
Car Nissan Qashqai
Engine 2.0-litre four cylinder petrol
Transmission six-speed manual gearbox driving front wheels
only
Economy 26.2mpg in town, 41.5mpg motorway, 34.4mpg overall
Performance top speed 119mph, 0-62mph in 10sec
CO2 emissions 199g/km
Price £18,874 as tested
