Datsun has been gone for 32 years, and while those of us in the US will remain Datsunless, it's coming back to India, Russia, South Africa, and Indonesia. Here's the first look at what those reborn Datsuns will look like.
It's nice to see the old Datsun beehive grille will be making a comeback along with the new car.
The official reveal date is July 15, in New Delhi, India, but I guess they got so giddy by launching their new Datsun site they threw in some slightly stylized images of the new car. The new Datsun logo is also revealed, clearly based on the old logo, but heavily chromed, beveled, and with the top and bottom of the main circle chopped off.
The new Datsuns are expected to be built on older Nissan platforms, but are expected to achieve best-in-class fuel economy and cargo room, both very important to the emerging-market middle-class buyers they're targeting. The Datsuns will compete with cars like the Hyundai i10, Maruti Wagon R, and others like the Mahindra Logan.
The styling, at least based on these stylized renders, looks sleek and modern, with some nice sculpting of the rear quarter panels to keep the little 5-door econobox from becoming too generic. I'm curious to see how it works when made out of reality instead of glowy light swooshes.
The Datsuns will use the Micra's 1.2-liter 3-cylinder engine, and the cars will cost about 3.2 lakhs, which should come to about $5300 US.