Nissan
Nissan will launch a brand new car in September called the Pulsar, designed to rival the ever-popular Volkswagen Golf.
Based on the same 'common module family' as the best-selling Qashai and X-trail, the Pulsar will boast some of the SUV power behind those two vehicles - and pundits believe the same engines, too.
Nissan have not entered this sector for eight years, not since the Almera which, while certainly not attracting too much attention from vehicle recovery providers, failed to excite buyers at the time.
Trading on some of the Qashqai's success, the Japanese car giant hopes to make in-roads into this lucrative area of the automotive industry.
Nissan
Speaking at the Geneva Motor Show some weeks ago, Nissan's third-in-command Andy Palmer explained, “Nissan was in that segment for a long time but we didn’t stand for anything. What’s changed is that we invented Qashqai and that has transformed the car landscape.”
Nissan
While the Pulsar name appeared on some Nissan line-ups in the Seventies, no UK-market Nissan has ever born the name.
However, the Pulsar GTI-R will be familiar to enthusiasts who took receipt of some grey imports from Japan.
Nissan has big ambitions, aiming to supplant Toyota as the number one Asian car maker. Perhaps unfortunately for the firm's Sunderland plant, however, the new Pulsar will be built in the manufacturer's Barcelona facility.
However, Nissan still wants to increase UK production to 80,000 units a year, a target supported by a £106m investment in the Sunderland factory.
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