Our spy photographers have captured a lightly camouflaged prototype of the freshly revealed in the USA and China, Nissan Versa / Sunny series, during testing in Sierra Nevada, Spain. The prototype was a right-hand drive example with test license plates from Spain.
Aside from the odd-looking exhaust tail pipe that extends all the way to the outer corner of the rear bumper and possibly the headlamp and tail lamp designs, we didn’t notice any other styling differences compared to the North American Versa and the China market Sunny models.
While Nissan remains tight-lipped at present over the availability of its low cost sedan in Europe, during the presentation of the Sunny at the China International Automobile Exhibition in late December 2010, the Japanese automaker said it will first go on sale in China and then “progressively across 170 countries worldwide under different vehicle brand names”.
From what we understand, Eastern and Southern European markets along with Russia will be the first to receive the car, while it remains to be seen if and when Nissan will sell the Versa, Sunny, Tiida or whatever name it is called, in Western Europe.
The global small sedan is based on Nissan’s “V” platform architecture that also underpins the latest Micra supermini. In China, the Sunny is powered by a 1.5-liter HR15DE four-cylinder engine, with prices ranging from RMB 82.8K to 112.8K (equal to US$12,700 – $17,400 or €9,080 – €12,370). The North American specification Versa comes with a 109HP 1.6-liter unit and is priced from $10,990 or about €7,850.
In Europe, the new Micra is available with a choice of two 1.2-liter three-cylinder gasoline units, a naturally aspirated version delivering 80HP and a turbocharged variant producing 98HP. At this point, we do not know if the European version of the low-cost sedan will be offered with the Micra’s 1.2L turbo engine or if Nissan will opt for a different four-cylinder unit.
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