Recently we reported that Nissan has released a few sketches of its upcoming SUV, Terrano. While we were expecting the actual model to be introduced in September, Nissan has officially declared that Terrano will be unveiled on the 20th of August this year. Terrano is the last of the cross shared product between the Renault- Nissan alliance in the country. “Terrano” has been sold by Nissan earlier as well between 1993 and 2006 in several European nations. With this SUV, Terrano name will be revived.
Nissan Terrano is actually based on the Renault’s star seller Duster. Nissan and Renault have an alliance under which they cross share their products. This is termed as badge engineering due to which a single car is launched multiple times under different brand names. This alliance has very frequently used this tactic to quickly add more cars to its lineup. The Nissan Micra and Renault Pulse are basically the same car with just different logos. Similar is the case with Nissan Sunny and Renault Scala. The launch of Terrano will mark an end to this practice of cross sharing between these 2 firms as the car sales are suffering due to lack of innovation.
Nissan Terrano is similar to Duster with respect to its dimensions and performance characteristics. But Nissan has tried this time to make the car look fresh and have its own appeal instead of simply changing the company logo. As per the sketches which were revealed, Terrano looks more macho than the Duster. The sketches showed that this Duster based SUV is endorsing some sheet metal changes in the rear. The rear of the car also gets a split light arrangement. The most prominent and promising change made here is to the front of the car. Terrano has are designed bumper with honeycomb chromed V shaped grille. There are revised head lamps as well. The grille also endorses a big company badge on it. Looking at these features it seems like Terrano’s exterior is inspired by the SUV X Trail.
CEO and President of Nissan Motor India Pvt. Ltd, Kenichiro Yomura, while talking about the designing of the Nissan Terrano said that “You can see from the sketch that Terrano has a bold and distinctive design that I am confident will appeal to our growing customer base in India, as will its driving performance and range of other features that will be revealed at a later date.”
We do know that since it is based on Duster, Terrano will be powered by the same diesel engine of 1.5 liter capacity and will be offered with two tuning states. These will be power output of 85 bhp with a torque of 200 Nm and an output of 108 bhp with a torque of 248 Nm. We still do not have any information regarding a petrol variant for Terrano. If it does then it will the same 1.6 liter petrol engine which is powering Duster. It has been officially revealed by Nissan that Terrano will offer a 4 wheel drive unlike Duster. This should give Terrano quite an upper hand over Duster.
As per the policy of cross sharing between Renault and Nissan, the re-badged car will have a price higher than the parent car. As a result Nissan Micra is has a heavier price tag than the Renault Pulse. Similarly, Nissan Terrano will be priced Rs 50,000 to Rs 60,000 more than the Renault Duster. Since it is being unveiled on the 20th of August, the car is expected to go on sale in the festive season in October. This is probably the best time for any company to launch a car.
Post its launch, Terrano will be competing with Ford EcoSport. This will be hell of a competition as EcoSport is doing a splendid business in the Indian market.