I dunno if it was just me, but I had a strange sense of deja vu when I saw the Nissan Qazana show car at Geneva 2009. I use the French term advisedly. Clink the ‘read more’ link to see why.
OK, it ain’t identical with the Citroen C-Cactus but you’ve got to admit it looks like the Nissan designers had been licking the Citroen team’s pencils. The Citroen came out in September 2007 at the Paris show, 18 months before the Nissan.
The Citroen and Nissan are both designed to a similar brief – to break the mould of superminis. In the Citroen it was all about clever parts reduction to save cost, and in the Nissan it’s simply about making a car that’s not so repetitive as the usual run of superminis.
Divergent aims, convergent results.
Isn’t that usually the case? In trying to look different, everyone ends up looking the same.
I’m still not sure why the both of them have vast, gaping chasms in their faces though – especially when they both have lights and/or air-intakes elsewhere…
pure coincedence…. maybe
Nissan are obsessed with making everything into an SUV.
They used to make sensible saloons, the Almira, the Primera, the QX.
Now, apart from maybe the 350z/GTR sports cars, I would struggle to find a Nissan I would actually buy.
If I want to sit above the peasants, I will buy a transit van. If I want the occupants to be supposedly safe, I will buy an armoured limo. I don’t own any land, so don’t need a high centre of gravity SUV.
I don’t know why they would copy an ugly car, if they would go that low to copy another manufacturer’s design, at least you would expect they’d copy a good looking car, right?
As a kid I stood in front of a mirror and pushed my nose up to look like a piggy, all wrinkles and big holes. These cars made me remember that. It wasn’t even funny, I guess.
I can sort of understand the Nissan, but why the Citroën? Not why anything, just… WHY? It’s going into production too, shortly. And, I hope, briefly. A design to keep locked in a basement. Under cover. Somewhere in the Atlantic.
the nissan might be good but have a lot of horrible bits. The citroen looks like the cross-breed of a smart car and a wild boar. Well, it’s time to stop the whiskey supplies of the design office.
Okay, they both look like melted cheese…
So melted cheese-hippo-wild bear-pixar studio cartoony designs are the new trend, eh?
The title above this article should be: Flawed from birth.
agree…
They both look quite similar, the nissan is the more stylish out of the two mainly because it’s not a production car. the citroen is much longer and uglier, the citroen looks like its fallen off of mt.everest and landed on it’s bumper. Both nissan and citroen are doing well lately; citroen with their good-looking c5 and their new very practical and stylish c3 picasso and nissan with their incredible 370Z and GT-R
in my opinion they both look ugly. The Nissan is slightly better, but still, if it went into production I wouldnt’ buy it: It has a high suspension, which probably doesn’t make it any good off road, but instead makes it annoying to drive on the road. For small cars I’ll stick to the Fiat Grande Punto (or Linea if I’d want more storage space) and Alfa Romeo MiTo.
When is the C Cactus going on sale? I know a lot of people think it’s ugly ( i love it personally ), but there is no denying it’s a very good concept for a car.
The Qazana, not so much.
I wouldn’t drive either one. They both look like something from the film “Cars.” Just too cartoon-like for my tastes.
To quote myself from the 5th March on the Qazana news page here “Looks like a current Micra front end crossed with a Citroen C-Cactus…”, so nope, your not the only one who spotted this.
I thought it was okay for jap manufacturers to take hints from the euro mob.. they´ve done it before.. and will do it again, very consistant the japanese… the wow factor in this particular case though, isn´t the resemblance rather the fact that the nissan has more appeal than it´s source of inspiration, a case of the knock off being better than the original.. well done Nissan, keep up the good ..ehhhh ..work… !
The only thing that looks similar is the front bumper, apart from that they are totally different, apart from the colour.lol
only the colour is the same lol
they look very different, and in the metal more so – just because they’re both silver small SUV’s you think they look similar? lol I’d expect more from the guys at Top Gear.
they are both ugly, big looking, pointless and cartoon-character-looking .. why would anyone want to buy one? more to the point, why change something that we have almost perfected. i want to feel happy in a car and i think i would start to question how far away from the Pokemon show i was if i was caught driving one of those.
my discovery 3 heater fills the cabin with exhaust smells on cold mornings. The dealer maintains the vehicle is operating normally. I can’t think this will be healthy for my family.
Has anybody else had this problem or similar experiences?
I’d rather buy a Fiesta. If I needed to drive through a muddy field to get to work, I’d buy the four-wheel drive Panda. But those? No.
A much more blatant rip-off is Ford’s Iosis-Max. Google it, then Google Citroen C-Sportlounge. Get a pic of each nose, then gasp in horror at Ford’s unimaginativeness. Only the front, mind. The rest just looks like any other Ford.
EuroCarFan, I agree that Nissan is at it’s best with their sports cars. Even in the past. Would you rather a ’95 Primera or a Silvia/***SX? I really think we should get Japanese Nissans though. Some of them are hugely better than Euro-ones (actually, if Infiniti makes it to Europe, we will get one. Nissan Skyline = Infinity G37. So that’s why the GT-R (R35) is seperate…)
Gassed, you could try an independent garage, but if you do, ask about the warranty if you have one.
Your problem reminds me of Atmos from Dr. Who, though. Killer Sat Nav!!
They really don’t look that similar. All you have done is picked up on one little design feature and used it to describe the whole car. If you can look past the circles on the front, you will see that the two are very different. It is like saying that a bin looks the same as a sock because they both have a whole in the top – it just doesn’t make sense! Out of everything you could have written about quite an interesting design for a car you chose to write that! its just horrible journalism
the nissan sure looks a lot better than the citroen
I think this Nissan looks pretty funky.
Like its atleast something away from those snot boxes we keep seeing around the city everyday… Oh and it has really cool wheels. If not anything, i want those wheels to stay!!
dan, how can a blob essentialy not look like an other blob ?? The one is perhaps not quite as blobby as the other but still a blob wouldn´t you agree ?
You face the same problem with most typeO cars as well, the ferrari blah looks rather similar to the lambo blah which is a bit like the bugatti blah that resembles the maserati blah blah blah. The need to compete forces design to compromise in as the process of staying on the road at 200+mph is rather similar believe it or not. So yes, the nissan´s front is unshamefully thieving and while the air ducts and bits and bobs here and there are somewhat different, essentialy these two cars look the same..At least that´s what my wife says and women are a good scale to mesure this type of thing. After all we´re all inbread petrol heads thriving on differences your normal person didn´t even know exhisted…
That Nissan’s a blob I quite like. For some reason it reminds me of a R/C toy car, but in a good way. I guess it’s the high wheel arches: it makes it look fun to drive, kind of like a dune buggy.
The holes in the Citroën bumper just beg to have massive turbochargers installed behind them. Heh.
I really dont like both of those cars and the Nissan is really ugly.
They’re both cars, they’re both white, and they both have two large holes in the front; I wouldn’t cal them the same.
I’d rather see weird looking cars on the road than see boring ones.
the front of the Citrone here seems to be inspired by Porsche Cayanne
Some very british conservative narrow mindedness going on in some of these comments…”oh no! It looks different to what we’re use to…must criticise!”
I think, design wise, they’re both way, way more unique thann the average car you see trauling around the merry british roads.
Who started the SUV Crazz in the frist place!!?and is it Patent.? and why Copy Cat them.?
looks like a small Wanabe! “Hummer”
why are manufacturers trying to make their cars look like crushed frogs in lipstick? The citroen c cactus is an ugly thing full stop; but when I saw the Nissan Qazana i nearly threw up. It is a disgrace to mankind and about the seperated at birth thing, I would hate to see their parents (Kia Gloomjuice and Toyota Clinical depression 5000).
Fortunately I was able to make this car look muuuuuuch better…
http://www.new.facebook.c om/photo.php?pid=2709628& l=31a9c75ff8&id=743425389
remember when jeremy clarckson blew up that nissan sunny and said that all people driving nissan sunnys have to be crazy fools, well theres something i dont think jeremy knows. the nissan sunny is still availiable as a family saloon in egypt. i think that nissan made the car very good in egypt
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