The Micra name carries a lot of clout, but does Nissan’s all-new version make a splash?
The once mighty Micra is a vaporous ghost in Tyne and Wear these days, haunting Nissan’s Sunderland factory where workers once toiled over the froglike supermini.
They put in such care and efficiency that the plant became Europe’s most productive. Now the press and assembly tools have been palletted into shipping crates and reassembled at Chennai in India, one of four plants across the world that will produce the latest Micra incarnation, from where it will be exported to Britain.
As for Sunderland, it produces the supermini future; Juke, Note, Qashqai and, eventually, the battery-electric Leaf. And so the car industry has cannibalised supermini sales into market niches.
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