Nissan News: Nissan's Small RWD Sports Car Up In The Air

[William Maley]

Last year at the Tokyo Motor Show, Nissan debuted the IDx concepts. Looking like a modern interpretation of the Datsun 510 from the seventies, the IDx was a small, rear-drive coupe that could be a competitor to the Subaru BRZ and Scion FR-S. In fact, many reports have cited comments made by Nissan Executive Vice President Andy Palmer saying that production model could arrive by 2016. But according to Wards Auto, the dream maybe is just that.

Wards had the chance to speak with Pierre Loing, vice president-product planning for Nissan Americas. Loing explained that the automaker is having a tough time trying to make a business case for the vehicle.

“It’s not easy to do, (and) if you do something like this and you manage to do a vehicle at (a low) price, what else would you do on this platform? Because frankly to do a platform for 50,000 or 60,000 (units) a year – it’s not worth it,” said Loing. “Will (the IDx) become something or not is debated, but certainly not (by 2016).”

Source: Wards Auto

William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at[email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

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[David]

While the IDx is a cool concept, I see the hard time building a case for this car at such low production numbers. My question is the 50-60,000 units a year just what you see for the US or the global market?

[A Horse With No Name]

Got to be global market...right now FRS and BRZ are fighting to sell.  I see the small RWD sports car going away,actually.  As cars get more complex, it will be harder for car makers to rationalize the costs.  These are the good old days...we still have the old iron around, and we can still buy new or late model sports cars that are worth a damn.  Neither will be the case in 15-20 years, or sooner.

[William Maley]

Got to be global market...right now FRS and BRZ are fighting to sell.  I see the small RWD sports car going away,actually.  As cars get more complex, it will be harder for car makers to rationalize the costs.  These are the good old days...we still have the old iron around, and we can still buy new or late model sports cars that are worth a damn.  Neither will be the case in 15-20 years, or sooner.

 

I could see that as well.