Nissan announces a new baby - but what will it be?

3:35pm Tuesday 3rd June 2008

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THE MICRA used to be Nissan's bread-and-butter car. A driving school darling thanks to its simple controls and ease of operation, in 1990 the Micra was the eleventh most popular car in the UK with just under 50,000 sales.

No wonder Nissan chose its Sunderland plant to be the new European home of the second generation Micra launched two years later.

This Micra model stood for everything that was good about Nissan's award-winning North-East factory. Manufactured to uncompromising standards and blessed with unsurpassed reliability for a British-built car, it was the first Japanese model to win the European Car of the Year award.

Like the previous version, the third generation model launched in 2003 was also made at the Sunderland plant. It had a wider range of engines, including Renault-sourced 1.2 petrol and 1.5 direct-injection diesels, and offered improved driving manners. The chassis also provided the basis of the next Renault Clio.

But by now the writing was on the wall for small hatchbacks. With car manufacturers offering more models, mercilessly targeted at specific demographics, sales of straightforward models like the Micra began to weaken. As the market began to splinter into an ever greater number of niches, fewer and fewer buyers wanted a "Jack-of-all-trades."

Nissan needed to sell the Micra in big numbers if it was to make a significant profit.

Bosses noted how other car manufacturers had given up on building superminis in Western Europe. By switching to new factories in Eastern Europe and India they could crank out as many cars as the market could absorb, at a considerably lower cost. Privately, Nissan personnel knew Sunderland would face an up-hill task to win the next Micra contract due to be awarded in 2008. Company president Carlos Ghosn admitted as much earlier this year, when he said it was virtually impossible to build small cars profitably in Western Europe any more.

So it came as no surprise when Ghosn announced last month that the Micra would leave the North-East for a new home in Chennai, India.

Now we know why.

The car that will replace the Micra is described as an "innovative all-new compact car." Outwardly at least, it will have almost nothing in common with the outgoing supermini.

Although Nissan remains tight lipped about its plans - and the first official picture released yesterday amounted to nothing more than three bold slashes on a white sheet - the car is expected to be a small crossover model, almost a junior version of the Sunderland-built Qashqai.

The Qashqai which blends 4x4 style with the practical aspects and low running costs of a family hatch has been something of a sleeper hit in Europe and is now the most popular model made in Sunderland.

Nissan has made no secret of the fact that it wants to extend its crossover line-up beyond the Qashqai, Qashqai+2 and soon-to-arrive Murano. The logical choice would be a car sitting beneath the Qashqai aimed at first time buyers. Sunderland's next model will be that car.

Nissan promises that the new model will be sportier than the Qashqai - although that's a well-worn mantra - and some styling cues may be taken from the Urge concept car unveiled two years ago.

Motorists won't get their first taste of what the new model will look like until next year, when a close-to-production ready example is likely to appear at one of the big European motor shows.

Britain will have a big hand in designing and engineering the car. Nissan has handed over global responsibility to its design centre in the UK.

Final road testing and evaluation will be conducted on the challenging roads of northern England. If Nissan can get its car to drive well on the B-roads of Weardale and Northumberland it will be able to handle anything Europe can throw at it.

Production will start in 2010. By then Sunderland will have stopped making the Micra which will have switched to India and four other low-cost plants around the world.

Will the new model have the legs of the once all-conquering Micra? The workers at Sunderland will certainly be hoping so.