This is Ireland's cheapest new car!
Nissan has stolen a march on rivals by introducing the new Pixo town car at a sub €10,000 price!
If you think the Nissan Pixo looks a bit familiar, give yourself a clap on the back as the Pixo is a sister car of the Suzuki Alto. The Pixo is now Nissan's entry-level model. To save on development and production costs it is built on the same production line as the little Suzuki Alto in India. Under the skin there is no difference between the two cars but interior and exterior styling tweaks have been made to help differentiate the two no-nonsense, value for money cars.
On the outside Nissan has put its distinctive 'six-slot' grille on the front end that makes the Pixo a firm member of the Micra/Note small car family. The rear end looks a little smarter, too. The boot, of course, is tiny but with the seats up it will take a few shopping bags (129 litres). If you fold down the rear seats there are 367 litres of cargo space - a Mondeo's boot alone has over 500 litres of space. In fact, you could park this tiny car in the Ford's boot! At 3.56 metres long, parking is effortless. Like the Alto, the Pixo can turn around in a tiny amount of road space, so as a car for city driving and daily use it does the job. Inside the cabin there is nothing out of place. The Pixo, like the Alto, is an honest little car. It does the job and behind the wheel you feel happy with that. This is simple, low cost transport.
In a nutshell the Pixo has five doors, can turn on a cent, has seating for four and a very economical 1-litre petrol powered engine that is happy to buzz about town all day long. The three-cylinder engine has enough power to save embarrassment on the motorway too with 68bhp - remember this car weighs as much my leg, so 68bhp is fine in an 855kg car. The baby Nissan has a manual gearbox as standard but the Japanese giant also offers an automatic version. The Pixo, as you can guess, is green, with a low CO2 figure of just 103g/km. At the rear of the Pixo is a new logo, 'Puredrive'. Nissan will use this badge on all its cars that have a CO2 figure rating of less than 140g/km.
New cars are a rarity these days, with just 57,000 registered in 2009 to date, but the Pixo makes sense as a runabout with an average fuel consumption of 4.4 litres per 100 kilometres or 64 mpg in old money. 'SE' is the entry level €9,895 version. If you want more toys like electric windows, side airbags, front fog lights etc get the SVE version for €10,900. ESP and curtain airbags are an €800 option, while air-con is €600.
The Pixo enters a market that is dominated by cars ranging in price from €10-16,000 like Ka, i10, Picanto, 500 etc. Nissan expects to sell 150 in the first quarter of 2010. Nissan is running a sales promotion from 20 November to 10 December where it will give free servicing for three years (worth about €510) with every Pixo.
It sounds catchy, I'll say it again: Nissan Pixo is Ireland's cheapest car.
Michael Sheridan
