Nissan Confirms New Small Car for N. America

Nissan North America Inc. confirms it will bring a new small car, positioned below the Sentra in size, to North America in calendar 2007.

The auto maker won't say precisely whether it will fill the slot with an all-new model or import a car not currently sold in North America. But it says the current Cube and March/Micra small cars are examples of the type of vehicle it has in mind. Nissan executives earlier told Ward's the Cube would be imported into the U.S.

Currently, the Cube is sold in Japan and the March/Micra marketed in both Japan and Europe.

Nissan will continue to offer the Sentra as its core entry in the compact-car market in North America. It undergoes a redo for release in the summer of 2006. A plant in Mexico, will continue as the global production source for the next-generation Sentra.

“Just as we have entered the fullsize truck segment with bold, breakthrough products like Titan, we are determined to offer customers more choice in the growing compact-car segment,” says Jed Connelly, senior vice president-sales and marketing.

Nissan says it will disclose further details about its North American compact-car strategy at a later date.