Nissan’s newest addition to the Micra family rolled off the production line at its Sunderland plant yesterday. The decision to build the convertible at the plant created 70 new jobs and safeguarded another 250. Nissan hope to sell 20,000 coupe’s a year.
The car has a folding glass that can be raised or lowered into the boot at the touch of a buttom, a feature now common on most convertibles such as the Peugeot 206 CC and Daihatsu Copen.
The car is built at a special facilty created inside the main factory, at the plant’s final assmemby shop, alongside German supplier Karmann GmbH, who have set up their own production operation, employing 50 people to make the folding glass roof modules.
The C+C was designed at Nissan Design Europe, developed at the Nissan Technical Centre Europe in Bedfordshire, and is now built by Nissan Motor Manufacturing in Sunderland.
Colin Dodge, managing director of the Sunderland plant, said: “The C+C started life as a design excercise for the 2002 Paris Motor Show. That concept car recieved such a favourable reaction from the public and motoring Press that the decision was taken to make it a production reality.
Nissan has never built a convertible car in Europe before and I’m delighted that our plant has been given the responsibility, and challenge, of producing the C+C.
Although the production volume will be relatively small compared to the other models we manufacturer here, the C+C is a very important car for Nissan because of the boost it will give to the brand right across Europe.”