Nissan Micra: Fully Chic

Motoring Channel Staff - 10/December/2007

Melbourne, Australia — Nissan has just launched its new Micra in Australia aimed predominantly at female buyers. 

In dealerships now, the new Micra will compete in the hotly contested compact car market with rivals such as the Toyota Yaris, Mazda2, and Ford Fiesta.

Priced from under $15,000, the new vehicle fills the hole that has existed in Nissan's compact car line-up after the previous Micra was dropped in 1997.

After it's 10 year hiatus the new model is quite different, particularly the way it looks. 

Hoping to appeal to fashion conscious buyers, Nissan claims "The emergence of the pert, pretty face of the new Nissan Micra will have nondescript look-alike rivals across Australia scurrying to the beautician for a makeover."

The Japanese compact car has a range of standard features to attract new buyers, including air conditioning, keyless entry and central locking, power windows and mirrors and an MP3 compatible CD stereo with an auxiliary MP3 input jack for easy access to MP3 players.

Nissan Australia expects to sell about 400 Micras per month in Australia, with buyers predicted to be predominantly female.

Nissan will be spruiking the car with a 'made for cities' tag line. Ross Booth, in charge of Marketing at Nissan Australia, believes the Micra is the perfect car for the city market: "The Nissan Micra not only stands out from the crowd with its fresh, friendly and fashionable looks, but it can boast excellent driving characteristics and incredible packaging."

Nissan describes the Micra's new look as 'unmistakable' with a high-rise roofline, short front and rear overhangs and an elevated driving position that "set it apart from the grid-locked maddening-crowd of anonymous hatches clogging city arteries around the country".

Ross Booth talked up the car's city runabout credentials, aided by speed sensitive electric power steering that improves assistance at parking speeds and offers a very tight turning circle of 8.8m. It measures just 3.7 metres long and 1.66 metres wide (very small) which makes parking even less stressful.

"It’s the ideal solution for city drivers who want a neat compact car with all of the trimmings, but at a very competitive price," said Mr Booth.

The new Nissan Micra is priced at $14,990 and this includes a 4-speed automatic transmission as standard. "The only gear drivers need to worry about is what they'll be wearing to the office Christmas party," says Nissan.

With automatic gearboxes as standard, the new Nissan Micra is powered by a fuel efficient 1.4-litre 4-cylinder petrol engine.
Nissan says that trips to the service station will be few and far between thanks to the 72kW engine, as it drinks just 6.8 litres of fuel for every 100km travelled (6.8L/100km) which is very good. 

This level of fuel consumption is partly due to the engine, but also the light weight of the car itself, which tips the scales at just 965kg which is very light for a modern car. Engine specifications are as follows:

Engine: 1.4-litre Twin Cam
Power: 72kW @ 5600rpm
Torque: 137Nm @ 3200rpm

Boot space of 251 litres which isn't class leading, but is fairly good never the less. This space extends to 584 litres when the 60/40 split-fold 3-seat rear bench is folded down.

As Nissan points out, personal safety too is never far from any city dweller's mind and Micra owners will be protected by anti-lock brakes, active front headrests and twin airbags.

There is a $1,700 extras package called the "Micra City Collection". This adds dual side airbags and curtain airbags as well as 15-inch alloy wheels and an MP3 compatible 6-stacker CD sound system.

Nissan says the Micra's ethos is its easy and fun to drive nature, crisp and nimble handling, fantastic manoeuvrability and impressive levels of comfort and quietness. The new Nissan Micra is on sale now, and comes in a range of colours from Roma Red to Tokyo Silver and London Rose.

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