Nissan Mixim concept inside out

By Guy Bird

Motor Shows

30 August 2007 05:21

Hold onto your hats, we’re off to 2020!

Mixim is Nissan’s futuristic Frankfurt show concept. The firm hopes the fully electric four-wheel drive ‘supermini coupe’ with a radical interior could be just what teenagers today will want to drive in 2020. It is also recognition that tomorrow’s drivers might want something very different from today’s. Nissan’s global design chief, Shiro Nakamura, puts it bluntly: 'If the motor industry is going to survive beyond the next few years, we are going to have to work hard to attract future generations of drivers – people who currently find it difficult to love the car. Mixim is one way to do that.'

The back might resemble the current Citroen C4, but pretty much everything else about the Mixim is based far in the future. Aside from the striking mixture of exterior surfacing complete with racing helmet visor-inspired windscreen, it’s the interior that stands apart. Although based on a modified version of Nissan’s B-platform used for the Micra, Note and Cube, it’s no conventional supermini. The ‘three plus one’ seating configuration puts the driver at the centre of the action with two full-size seats slightly further back on each side. The occasional fourth seat for a slightly less good friend or a child seat flips up centrally behind the driver, accessible when the front seats swivel out of the way.

By Guy Bird