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Marton Pettendy22 Apr 2015
NEWS

New Murano and Maxima ruled out for Oz

Nissan's next-generation flagship crossover and sedan will not be available in Australia

Nissan Australia has confirmed it will not introduce either the third-generation Murano or the eighth-generation Maxima because neither model will be produced in right-hand drive guise for markets outside North America.

That means that neither Nissan's flagship sedan nor flagship crossover, as it calls the Murano, will be offered here in their next generations, leaving the mid-size Altima sedan to remain the Japanese brand's top-shelf sedan for the foreseeable future and the Murano to disappear from showrooms once stocks of the current model are exhausted.

Nissan revealed its MkIII Murano at last year's New York motor show and as recently as July 2014 Nissan Australia CEO Richard Emery said the nameplate would survive a local model cull because the large luxury SUV had a small but loyal following a would play a role in shedding the company's 'vanilla' image.

The MKII Murano attracted just 550 sales locally last year but has averaged almost 2000 sales annually since its launch in 2005.

Its successor went on sale late last year in the US, where it is a strong seller and claimed to symbolise “Nissan's design-led product and brand renaissance".

The latest Murano presents a new design dominated by a ‘V-motion’ grille, LED ‘boomerang’ headlights and running lights and a Range Rover-esque ‘floating’ roof, plus a fresh interior, NASA-inspired Zero Gravity front and outboard rear seating, and a carryover 3.5-litre DOHC V6 with Xtronic continuously variable automatic transmission.

The Mk8 Maxima, meantime, was unveiled at this year's New York show in April, when Nissan's global boss said it would be a key part of his plan to snare a 10 per cent share of the US market.

It is based on the same platform and is mechanically similar to the Murano, but -- unlike the US-built Pathfinder sold here -- is also not produced in RHD.

Powered by a mostly new 224kW 3.5-litre V6, the next Maxima also adopts Nissan’s new V-Motion front-end, signature boomerang lights and ‘floating’ roof, and is said to lighter, more rigid and better to drive than ever before, bringing "sport car-like acceleration and handling to the large sedan segment", as well as new autonomous braking technology.

Officially, Nissan Australia has long said it has no plans to introduce the new Maxima here, but in an interview with motoring.com.au last year Emery did not rule out the possibility of the next Maxima replacing the Altima at some point.

"I think there is a place for Maxima. [But] Is there a place for two cars? I don’t know," he said at the time.

“As the large car-medium car segment gets smaller you can’t have that much room to move with different model line-ups, I would have thought.

“So that might come down to timing; as to when the Maxima is available, if it is available and what it looks like versus what Altima is up to at the time."

Today, Emery confirmed the next Maxima would not be available in RHD and would therefore not be sold here, where the smaller Altima is the basis of Nissan's multi-million dollar V8 Supercars campaign.

Nissan Australia's situation has parallels with Ford Australia, which has said the new Mondeo will remain its flagship passenger model when the Falcon departs next year, despite the overseas release of a new larger top-shelf sedan – in this case a LHD-only new-generation Taurus sedan designed in Australia just for China.

Speaking at this week's launch of upgraded MY15 Micra and MY15 JUKE models, Emery said the recently revised MY15 Pulsar range will continue on sale indefinitely.

The local Nissan boss said he expected annual Pulsar sales of between 900 and 1200 to continue following the 'Series 2' repositioning, and that Nissan's aged small car is "not going to be a Mazda3 or [Toyota] Corolla" in terms of popularity.

Emery said there was no decision yet on the new European Pulsar, which is built in RHD in the UK. He said its higher landed price continued to make its local introduction difficult, and ruled out selling it alongside the existing Pulsar.

"If it gives us enough volume and branding advantage we'd consider it, but it has a high cost base," he said.

Nissan Australia's next new model will be the NP300 Navara, pricing for which has been released ahead of its release next month.

Emery said he expected Nissan's new one-tonner to outsell the Ford Ranger and "fight for number two" in a light commercial segment dominated by Toyota's HiLux.

But he added that Nissan needs to increase its passenger car sales in order to increase its current overall market share of 6.5 per cent, which makes it the fifth best selling brand, to 7.0 cent in the short-term and 8.0 per cent in the long-term -- a figure he described as "not impossible".

This year will also see Nissan Australia finally introduce the high-performance NISMO range – including the GT-R, 370Z and JUKE – by the end of this year, following an announcement within six months.

"We're getting close," he said. "We'll have our position nailed within the next six months. It will need to be at least two to three cars."

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