“I think car manufacturers—in general—have forgotten about the passion for cars,” Nissan’s Ivan Espinosa tells Top Gear. “It depends on the country, but you can see that young customers are less and less attracted to cars.”
The personable senior vice president of global product planning (he’s basically in charge of Nissan’s future road car lineup) thinks this lack of enthusiasm from is because nobody is offering anything able to spark that passion. And he has a plan—at least a dream plan—for Nissan’s future that includes a new entrant lower down the performance-car food chain.
When asked whether the company could offer a new hot hatch like the old hot Pulsars, he told us: “I’m not sure about a hot hatch, but maybe a smaller electric sports car you could think of. Something smaller, a bit more affordable. Definitely.”
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He notes how Nissan has always had a three-tiered performance-car offering, and it’s something he wants to work toward: “Depending on which point in time you take, we’ve always had the GT-R, we’ve always had Z, and we’ve always had an entry [level car]—either a hot hatch like Pulsar, or something else down there [at that price and performance point].
“And this today is something that we kind of miss. This [price and performance] point.
“Now how do we move into the future? Ideally—this is my product-planner dream—to keep these three elements as our sports car offering. A top-of-the-line GT-R with its Nismo variant, a Z with its Nismo variant, and an entry-level car with its Nismo variant as well. This could be a kind of ideal sports car offering.
“I’m not sure it’s a hatch, but something that’s a bit more of an entry point for younger buyers—an early-twenties kind of customer that’s passionate about cars.”
This new entry-level sports car will not only need to be “exciting and engaging to drive,” but also allow its young clientele the ability to connect—in the digital space via the car—to their friends and the community as a whole.
“This is one of the things that can make the flame come back again,” he added.
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
