Jul 29, 2003 – Some companies have shown the first photos of cars to be presented at the upcoming Frankfurt motor Show, like Opel with the Astra or Volkswagen, with the coming Golf. Others are still queuing outside the doors of Stola or Coggiola or DC Design or D3 or some other prototype-maker, waiting for their turn, and using sketches to tell us that they too are alive and ready to come up with something new and exciting.

Nissan have just released sketches of a medium sized 4x4 which will be named Dunehawk. It will be presented as a concept car, but there cannot be any doubt that Nissan want to hold on to their current position as purveyor of modern SUVs in a European marked that is actually growing – their X-Trail is a success in the marketplace and is used for benchmarking by competitors. In other words: it will soon enter production as a purely European model.

The car is described as a combination of SUV and MPV, which is OK with me as long as we define an SUV as an MPV with 4x4. The design demonstrates a very strong Nissan front, much more pronounced than on the Evalia, but the interior seems to have the same sort of cockpit-like compartments for driver and passenger as the concept Nissan presented at Geneve this spring. The exterior shows traces of the skeleton treatment started by Ducati with their Monsters ten year ago, and later refined by Giugiaro.

The Frankfurt Motor Show marks the official start of European sales for the Nissan 350Z sports car, and Nissan will be showcasing its future technologies with a fuel cell powered X-Trail prototype which will form the basis of an FCV to go into test production this year. The Nissan press conference at the IAA Frankfurt Motor Show will take place on the Nissan stand (A 01, Hall 3.1) on 9 September at 1pm.