Geneva 2016: Nissan makes us ask ‘what is premium?’
Nissan’s X-Trail Premium concept has Car Design News reaching for the dictionary
Alongside the European debut of the IDS concept we saw in Tokyo, Nissan unveiled a couple of ‘concepts’ based on current Qashqai and X-Trail crossovers.
The X-Trail Premium was the one that had us stumped. At its most basic level, when used as an adjective, the word premium means something of higher value than others of its type; something exceptional. And while this particular X-Trail features a material covered in bronze/gold wrapped around its rockers and on the spokes of its wheels, and a carbon fibre effect on its roof and hood, it’s a huge stretch of the marketing department’s imagination to say that really fits the definition – we’d argue that the additions significantly detract from the regular X-Trail’s design, rather than enhancing it.
Further adding to the complications is that Nissan already has its own premium brand, Infiniti, that should be taking care of the higher value, exceptional end of the market. We can’t help but feel the need to reclaim the word premium until it’s used to describe something of added, rather than lesser, value.
