Photo: Nissan
This is one of the few rumors that you can share with the kids and wife. "Look, guys, this Nissan is going to be our next car," says the grateful buyer who thinks the Rogue is too big and ugly.
After years of waiting, Nissan is finally going to launch the Qashqai at the Detroit Auto Show, a couple of weeks from now, a source has revealed to The Truth About Cars.
That source could very well be Nissan itself, or that particular product representative. We don't mind, especially as the US-spec Qashqai is one of those projects driven by pure customer demand, like the Golf R, or the manual Audi TT.
That's what the Qashqai is, the Golf R of family crossovers. Well, that's not actually true. The baby brother of the Roque isn't that fun to drive, but America is going crazy for smaller 4x4s, and this will be great.
The Qashqai might get a new name, but it won't replace any existing crossover. However, it could be considered an alternative to the Rogue Select, which was the old generation kept in production like a geriatric actor still loved by the public.
It's not yet clear what the US-spec Qashqai will cost, what will power it and how much Nissan will charge. In fact, some of those questions won't be answered in Detroit either.
The easy way out would be to install a naturally-aspirated 2-liter, as most cheap crossovers have one. However, the cool kids have turbo mills, small ones. Just look at the thumper of a 1.5-liter used by the new Honda CR-V.
In Europe the Qash' is sold with a variety of engines, none of which are suitable for US consumption. There's the 1.5 and 1.6 dCi, which are the most popular choices but run on diesel, or the 1.2 DiG-T, which is underpowered at 115 hp.
Price-wise, the Qashqai should be between the $20,250 Juke and the $23,820 Roque, but closer to the latter. Honestly, for that kind of money, we'd rather have a Nissan than a VW Golf.
That source could very well be Nissan itself, or that particular product representative. We don't mind, especially as the US-spec Qashqai is one of those projects driven by pure customer demand, like the Golf R, or the manual Audi TT.
That's what the Qashqai is, the Golf R of family crossovers. Well, that's not actually true. The baby brother of the Roque isn't that fun to drive, but America is going crazy for smaller 4x4s, and this will be great.
The Qashqai might get a new name, but it won't replace any existing crossover. However, it could be considered an alternative to the Rogue Select, which was the old generation kept in production like a geriatric actor still loved by the public.
It's not yet clear what the US-spec Qashqai will cost, what will power it and how much Nissan will charge. In fact, some of those questions won't be answered in Detroit either.
The easy way out would be to install a naturally-aspirated 2-liter, as most cheap crossovers have one. However, the cool kids have turbo mills, small ones. Just look at the thumper of a 1.5-liter used by the new Honda CR-V.
In Europe the Qash' is sold with a variety of engines, none of which are suitable for US consumption. There's the 1.5 and 1.6 dCi, which are the most popular choices but run on diesel, or the 1.2 DiG-T, which is underpowered at 115 hp.
Price-wise, the Qashqai should be between the $20,250 Juke and the $23,820 Roque, but closer to the latter. Honestly, for that kind of money, we'd rather have a Nissan than a VW Golf.
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