Nissan’s corporate strategy deserves special attention in nowadays because it decided not to follow not one, but two of the strongest concepts regarding car project in nowadays. Besides staying away from imposing one design language to its entire line, this automaker doesn’t care about unifying its products, either. March and Micra have come from the same project for three decades, but they always had several minor visual differences. The current generation tried to end this tradition, but this attempt didn’t last long.
Almost every conceptual decision of developing vehicles works like a light dimmer: the possibilities compose a continuous range of options, rather than the “all-or-nothing” of a common switch. Deciding about how much to differentiate the lineup for each country can go from selling the same cars at multiple countries to having some offered only at some particular ones. The truth is it’s possible both to succeed and to fail with any of the options because this question depends actually on analyzing each market individually. March and Micra reached the K13 generation in 2010 using a whole new project in order to execute the intention of reaching new markets, which ended making the first one successful at emergent markets and the second at more developed ones. Therefore, it would be wrong to keep offering the very same vehicle because they’d have to suit very different needs. This is why Nissan chose the half-life facelift to make these hatchbacks go different ways once again. The intention was to make March more attractive and modern while keeping it on a reasonable price, while making Micra stronger among the European competition (specially Ford Fiesta’s) by investing on style and technology.
The pictures reveal that the renewed cars share even the bumpers, but Micra received entirely new headlights in order to escape from the previous phase’s excess of round shapes. The back adds only internally-redesigned tail lights with LEDs, but this was enough to make the car look a little more elegant, staying away from the entry-level hatchbacks like Renault Twingo or Volkswagen up! and fight at the category immediately above. There will be nice equipment lists since the basic version, Visio, but the bigger additions will go to Tekna, the upscale trim: Micra will be able to receive 16” alloy wheels, digital climate control, keyless entry, multimedia sound system, panoramic sunroof, park assist, power windows and new color options, not to mention NissanConnect: this infotainment central includes GPS navigation and a 5.8” touchscreen. When it comes to the performance, the vehicle’s options will stay untouched: there will be the same four-cylinder 1.2L engine with or without the DIG-S turbine, paired to manual or CVT transmissions. Micra’s release is expected to this year’s last trimester.
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