New Nissan Sunny sales picking up

The older Nissan Sunny has never scorched the sales charts but did have its advantages like class leading space and good engine-transmission packages. With the launch of the new facelifted version, Nissan has stepped its game up by adding the one thing that the Sunny lacked as compared to a few of its competitors; Style.

The new Nissan Sunny, launched a few days ago and priced competitively between Rs 7.39 to 9.29 lakh for the petrol variants and between Rs 8.33 to 10.02 lakh for the diesel variants (both prices ex-showroom Mumbai) too seems to be doing quite well. When contacted, dealers informed us about how the buzz around the new car was quite impressive which in turn has resulted in a good number of confirmed bookings. General deliveries are set to begin in the first week of August.

While the diesel version of the Nissan Sunny has been the predominant seller between the two variants, the petrol isn’t too far behind. In fact, most dealers that we spoke to indicated on a 60:40 or 50:50 split between bookings of the diesel vs petrol manual variants. The CVT equipped petrol engined Nissan Sunny though is not doing remarkably well with almost negligible bookings or enquiries.

The increase in bookings and enquires alike can be attributed to the fact that the new Nissan Sunny is a much better looking car than ever before. The Indian automobile buying audiences then, are still one that wants a good-looking car as their predominant criteria. As much as manufacturers harp about the all important factors such as fuel efficiency, space and power, it seems that getting the basic exterior design exciting enough to entice is still as important.

The Nissan Sunny facelift is available with the same 99PS 1.5-litre petrol, and in diesel the 200Nm 1.5-litre engine options. The new version of the Nissan Sunny sedan is available in six colors including new shades like Nightshade, Pearl White and Deep Grey along with older shades such as Onyx Black, Beige Silver and Bronze Grey. Nissan hopes to increase its dealership to 200 by the end of FY 2014 and further to 300 by 2016.