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Posts Tagged ‘Nissan’
IT may be aimed at a youthful market, but the new Nissan Cube is no kid: while new to Americans, the 2009 model is the third generation of a vehicle that introduced the box-type car to the Japanese market.
“It looks as if it’s going fast even when it’s standing still,” is the clichéd compliment auto designers like to hear. But Nissan’s design director, Shiro Nakamura, jokes that the Cube looks as if it’s standing still even when it is going fast.
It is an antihero of a car — a cartoon car perhaps. Mr. Nakamura says it is appropriate for these belt-tightening times when expensive, macho and very fast cars seem out of place. The Cube’s engine has fewer horses (122) than a Tweet can have characters (140).
“The Cube is the least carlike of cars,” Mr. Nakamura said. “It is more product design than automobile design.” No wonder he likens the rear door to the one on a refrigerator.
Mr. Nakamura presents the Cube as a kind of value proposition: lots of space with a small footprint. It is like a studio apartment with a cathedral ceiling.
“The Cube is Japanese, but also global,” he said. The design came from an international group of designers including John Sahs, a Vietnamese-American based in Japan; Alfonso Albaisa, a Cuban-American working in Europe; and Hirotada Kuwahara and Tadamasa Hayakawa, who are both Japanese. All worked under the supervision of Mr. Nakamura, who is also Japanese.
The first Cube, of 1998, was sold only in Japan, predating other box cars like the Honda Element and the Toyota bB, which came to America as the Scion xB.
The second took inspiration from the Chappo concept car of 2001, which was the first car developed after Mr. Nakamura became head of Nissan design. At the time, he described the Chappo as a room on wheels, inspired by the idea of “a house overlooking a Zen garden.”
The geometry of this third-generation Cube, the first to come to the United States, is compromised by the addition of larger bumpers needed to meet American crash standards. Mr. Sahs likened its face to “a bulldog wearing sunglasses.”
The car appears less boxy than its name. Beveled edges around the windows imply thickness and solidity. Softened from the tin-box aesthetic of the last generation, the new Cube is a kind of Murakami cartoon of a car.
Last year, in a project sponsored by Nissan, students at the Pratt Institute customized the previous Cube. Studying and living in Brooklyn, the students were reconciled to the fact that they wouldn’t drive fast.
Most seemed to love the last generation of the rather poky car, but several recently expressed disappointment in the new design. “They’ve rounded off all the edges,” said one, begging for anonymity out of concern about offending a corporate sponsor.
Nor were the Pratt students impressed by Nissan’s effort to customize the car with the too-cute Krom package, intended to appeal to American youth. The fully equipped Krom model has a multibar grille that is a dead ringer for the ones now found on Fords.
That bold grille is a jarring contrast to the subtlty of the interior, which has an almost relentless, albeit high-concept, motif: a pattern of concentric circles repeated in the headliner fabric, on the faces of the audio speakers, on the cup holder liners and even on the surfaces of knobs. It also plays out in the shape of the exterior rear window panels.
That pattern, whose significance may be missed by many potential customers, began with the Chappo. It suggests a pool into which a pebble has been dropped, Mr. Nakamura said, or a Japanese garden in which a boulder is surrounded by raked gravel.
The instrument panel offers an identically sized tachometer and speedometer highlighted in white and blue. This suggests the moon and the earth, the designers say.
Another contrarian theme of the design is its asymmetry. (Links to the car’s Web site, nissanusa.com/cube, call up cute slogans like this one: “Symmetry is so last year.”)
“The driver sits on one side, not in the middle,” Mr. Nakamura noted. “So why should the car be symmetrical?”
In the Cube, as in the Chappo, the windows at the right rear provide a more expansive view than those on the left. The window design creates a C shape. “See there,” Mr. Nakamura said, pointing at the back end. “It says its name.”
Source (article): NYTIMES
Source (picture): BIGGERINJAPAN
These cars and trucks scored the worst in crash test and rollover ratings for the model year
Earlier this week, Ford Motor and General Motors announced dismal sales results for the month of January. With all the industry’s giants–even Toyota–struggling so mightily, it’s a wonder how any automaker can survive the global recession by continuing to crank out unsafe cars.
Still, they do–scores of them. In good times and bad alike, automakers design, build, produce and sell dozens of models that fail to impress in crash and rollover tests. The 2009 model year is no exception.
“Definitely the economy is going to play a big role in some of this stuff,” says Doug Scott, senior vice president of GfK Automotive, a market research and consulting firm. “Things like safety are probably, if not put on hold, then money will simply be pulled from these sorts of things toward something else.”
Behind the Numbers
To compile our list of the most dangerous vehicles of 2009, we used crash results from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and rollover ratings from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. NHTSA awards up to five stars for rollover safety, while IIHS uses a scale of “good,” “acceptable,” “marginal” and “poor.”
After each IIHS crash, the test dummies are checked for trauma in 28 regions for front crashes and 37 regions for side crashes, with each region earning a rating based on specific parameters for trauma. A “poor” rating means severe and possibly fatal trauma happened to drivers and/or passengers during the crash, while a “good” rating means little to no trauma occurred.
We awarded point values for each NHTSA and IIHS rating, with more points awarded for better results. The 16 cars on our list scored the lowest number of total points.
Among the lowest-scoring are the Chevrolet Trailblazer SUV, the Kia Rio small sedan and the Ford Ranger pickup.
Chevrolet Aveo, $12,625; Mini Car
Front: Acceptable
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 4/5 StarsChevrolet Colorado, $18,555; Small Pickup
Front: Acceptable
Side: Poor
Rear: Marginal
Rollover: 4/5 starsChevrolet Trailblazer, $29,900; Mid-size SUV
Front: Acceptable
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 starsChrysler PT Cruiser, $18470; Small Car
Front: Good
Side: Poor
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 4/5 starsDodge Nitro, $22,685; Mid-size SUV
Front: Good
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 starsFord Ranger, $15,835; Small Pickup
Front: Acceptable
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 starsGMC Canyon, $17,430; Small Pickup
Front: Acceptable
Side: Poor
Rear: Marginal
Rollover: 4/5 starsGMC Envoy, $31,370; Mid-size SUV
Front: Acceptable
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 4/5 starsHummer H3, $34,135; Mid-size SUV
Front: Acceptable
Side: Acceptable
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 starsHyundai Accent, $9,970; Mini Car
Front: Acceptable
Side: Poor
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 4/5 starsJeep Liberty, $23, 460; Mid-size SUV
Front: Good
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 starsJeep Wrangler, $21,210; Small SUV
Front: Good
Side: Poor
Rear: Marginal
Rollover: 4/5 starsKia Rio, $12,145; Mini Car
Front: Acceptable
Side: Poor
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 4/5 starsMazda B Series, $16,780; Small Pickup
Front: Acceptable
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 starsNissan Frontier, $17,460; Small Pickup
Front: Good
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 starsSuzuki Equator, $22,895; Small Pickup
Front: Good
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 stars
SOURCE: FORBES
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