New Qashqai goes into production in Sunderland

Nissan has announced that its Sunderland plant has started production on the latest version of the Qashqai.

The total number of new model launches at Sunderland in the last five years has now moved up to five with this news.

There will also be a new compact crossover car produced at the Sunderland plant in 2010.

The Qashqai+2 has been specifically designed and engineered with the European market in mind, with a flexible seven-seat configuration and more space inside.

The original Qashqai recently topped 235,000 in terms of sales numbers since launch in March 2007.

The introduction of a third production shift at Sunderland in June has created 850 new jobs.

"Qashqai has experienced unprecedented success in Europe and we are now looking forward to building on this with the launch of Qashqai+2," said Trevor Mann, senior vice president for manufacturing in Europe.

"In total, we expect our production target for both versions of Qashqai to be around 270,000 cars in the 2008 Financial Year, but of course this depends on the market.

"This level of volume will contribute to another record production year at our Sunderland plant with an estimated 450,000 vehicles coming off the line.
"I would like to congratulate and pay tribute to the Sunderland workforce for their efforts in meeting the demand for a very popular car, and thank them in advance for delivering Qashqai+2 to our customers to the same exacting standards."

Deliveries of the Qashqai+2 will begin on September 18th, with prices ranging from £17,199 for the two-wheel drive 2.0-litre petrol Visia to £23,799 for the top spec four-wheel drive Tekna 2.0-litre diesel.