Nissan Leaf Nismo Concept to debut at Tokyo show

Nissan has reportedly confirmed that the Nissan Leaf Nismo Concept will be unveiled at this month’s 2017 Tokyo Motor Show. The sporty concept version of the freshly-unveiled production second-generation electric car was shown in a presentation at a Nissan Futures event in Oslo, Norway. The image above was posted by Auto Express editor Steve Fowler on Twitter.

The Leaf Nismo Concept is in white, and wear typical Nismo add ons and red accent lines. Compared to the regular new Leaf, the Nismo car sports a more aggressive bumper with a more conventionally sporty placement of the “air intakes”, which house LED fog lamps.

There’s a red lip across the bottom of the front, and a Nismo emblem next to the Nissan badge on the blanked-out grille. There are also matching red accents on the side skirts and wing mirrors. The black roof, A pillars and wing mirrors (a colour scheme that’s available on the stock Leaf) is joined here by a black centre section on the bonnet.

The five-door hatchback, which has a lower and wider body than the original Leaf, appears to have lowered suspension here, as well as wheels that are larger than stock. The two-tone alloys here look similar in style to our Teana Nismo’s. The net result is typically Nismo and quite sporty – what do you think?

Last month, Alfonso Albaisa, Nissan’s senior VP for global design, told Autocar that a “racier version” of the new Leaf with Nismo add-ons could help the second-gen EV reach image-conscious buyers — something the previous car wasn’t very successful at.

“The previous Leaf’s design wasn’t popular with the majority of people, so its look couldn’t contribute to sales. The new car is lower, wider and sportier, with the point of this design being to get greater accessibility of the market,” the former Infiniti design chief said.

Albaisa, who was promoted to his current post in April, said that it would be easy to develop Nismo parts for the new Leaf. He pointed out that such a practice isn’t new to Nissan because Nismo trim is offered on the carmaker’s other models as well.



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