Nissan premiered an all new Lannia Concept at the 2014 Beijing Motor Show, a model specially for China. The concept has been designed for China by Nissan’s Chinese division showcasing the lifestyle of the Chinese people. As the Japanese manufacturer puts it, the concept exhibits an energetic, sleek and agile design that is aimed at Chinese “Post-80’s” trendsetters, which when put in simple terms is people born in the 1980’s or the young folks in China who are the prospective buyers.
While Nissan calls the Lannia concept a saloon, the design can be best-termed as a fastback. To begin with, the Nissan Lannia Concept carries a striking design with an aggressive tone running throughout the styling of the saloon. The front features the V-motion grille that blends sharply into the voluptuous hood of the car. The boomerang headlight design seen on Nissan’s existing models gets sharper for the concept. The new floating roof seen on other models also makes an appearance on the Lannia concept.
Coming to the side profile of the car, the pronounced wheel arches and the sharp and rising shoulder line accentuate the fastback look of the Lannia; while the C-pillar features a kicked up design. The rear profile too features sharpened edges with a rather small boot-lid. In all fairness, the Lannia takes inspiration from the Friend-Me concept and looks rather pleasing and evolutionary. The design has been developed by Nissan Design China in Beijing and the Nissan Global Design Centre.
The Lannia name can be translated as “Impression of the Bluebird”, also honouring the Nissan Bluebird; hence the colour. The local Chinese teams from the company were heavily involved in the entire development process from the market research to the design of the Lannia Concept. While Nissan hasn’t revealed more details about the concept; we do know that the Lannia concept is based on the Mercedes A-Class platform and is expected to go into production in 2016. The Lannia is most likely to feature the 1.6-litre and 2.0-litre engines under the hood.
The Lannia Concept also joins Nissan’s growing family of China focused models; however, it will also extend to other parts of the world in the future. If Nissan manages to retain the design language of the Lannia, it is sure to find a lot more takers in several other markets as well. In conjunction with the debut of the concept at the 2014 Beijing Motor Show, Nissan also announced the debut of the GT-R and 370Z NISMO versions in China.
