Nissan Hints at Possibility of Coupe-Style Nissan Qashqai

2014 marks the second generation of the Nissan Qashqai. Even though it’s only been available in Europe for one month, it’s already looking well on its way to outdoing the original. But, Nissan wants more, and this week a spokesperson went on record telling us exactly what else they want to do with the Nissan Qashqai.

Turns out, Nissan wants to take their popular crossover in the direction of the Range Rover Evoque. In other words, they want to coupe-ify it. Since the Qashqai is targeted primarily towards the European market, this makes perfect sense and follows in line with trends already set by other automakers. Nissan Europe’s general manager, Marco Fioravanti, even went on record saying as much:

“We are observing the moves of  other automakers such as Audi, Honda and Volvo. We will not stand watching… Nissan constantly studies model trends and mulls ideas. Some make their way to production and others fall at various stages.”

There’s another good point in there, though, which is that an Evoque-style Nissan Qashqai is nowhere near production. In fact, it’s not even in the production planning stage yet. It’s merely something that could happen at some point.

But, that doesn’t mean we can’t get excited about it!

On that note, let’s talk about what you could expect if a Nissan Qashqai Evoque were ever to be produced. For starters, let’s look at the Range Rover Evoque (left) compared to its bigger brothers, the Range Rover and the Range Rover Sport

Tthe differences between the three vehicles are minor, but important. Obviously, the Range Rover Evoque is smaller than the rest, but it boasts the most aggressive design. It also appears that the wheelbase has been shortened slightly, which should allow for more maneuverability on tight city streets. In theory, Nissan would likely be looking to do something similar with a coupe-style Qashqai.

Fittingly, where Land Rover has the Range Rover Sport and Range Rover Evoque, Nissan also confirmed last year that they have definite production plans for a Nissan Qashqai NISMO. However, one thing they absolutely won’t do is produce a hybrid version of the Qashqai. Fioravanti explains, “Our traditional engines have excellent fuel consumption. We want to keep a high ‘value for money’ formula on the Qashqai.”

In other words, Nissan stubbornly stands by their EVs… It’s either all electric or none at all. It’s a formula that worked well so far, so we can’t fault them on that. And, the Qashqai already has a diesel engine available that offers extremely low CO2 emissions of only 99g/km.

All in all, introducing a Nissan Qashqai pseudo-coupe seems like an excellent idea to garner more sales in Europe. They already have the Juke and the Juke NISMO selling like hotcakes (hot crumpets?), with the GT-R NISMO slated for European debut next month in Geneva. With a Qashqai NISMO confirmed in the works, and a Qashqai coupe on the table as a possibility, it looks like Nissan is well on their way to wrenching European drivers away from European automakers.