Mexstan

Here is a news story I just read. Now, if they would bring this out with a diesel it may be even more of a threat to some of the domestic market.

washingtonpost.com
A Designing Woman's Revenge


By Warren Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 17, 2003; Page G01


NAPA, Calif.

A top executive of General Motors Corp. once told Diane Allen that women should not be allowed to design the exteriors of cars and trucks. That ended Allen's desire to become a GM designer.

Today, Allen is design manager of Nissan Design America Inc., the beauty division of Japanese-owned Nissan North America Inc., which lately has been rolling out high-appeal automotive sculpture, such as the Nissan Murano wagon/SUV and the new Nissan Quest minivan.

Allen's design corps is preparing to introduce something else, something that could hurt GM, Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler Corp. in one of their most lucrative segments -- the market for full-size pickup trucks.

Allen's entry is the 2004 Nissan Titan pickup, touted by Nissan, with justification, as "the first true full-size pickup built by an import manufacturer."

The Titan, being introduced this fall, is designed to take more than sales from the domestics. After all, Toyota Motor Corp. has done that already with its Tundra pickup by selling 108,863 Tundra models in 2001 and 99,333 last year.

Nissan has similar numerical hopes. It initially wants to sell 100,000 Titans annually in the United States, still a small fraction of the 2.3 million full-size pickup trucks sold each year in this country.

But Nissan's market-impact hopes for the Titan are far greater. It wants to send an unmistakable message that the Titan marks the real beginning of the end of domestic dominance of full-size pickup truck sales.

Thus, the aptly named Titan is as big as -- and bigger than, in some areas -- any full-size pickup truck U.S. car companies have available. It has more headroom and rear legroom than its competitors. And in its King Cab model, the version with two full front doors and two smaller "rear access" doors, the rear doors open nearly 180 degrees, granting easy access to the back passenger cabin. No domestic full-size pickup currently has that feature.

The Titan, available with shift-on-the-run four-wheel drive, has a high stance. Minimum ground clearance in the tested King Cab model is 9.7 inches in the two-wheel-drive model and 11.3 inches in the four-wheel-drive version. Yet, the truck proved exceedingly stable on the twisting, winding back roads and mountain roads of California's wine country.

Power? Heck! Try an all-new, 5.6-liter, 305-horsepower V-8 stuffed inside a bold, rugged truck body that still has some extra touches of common sense, the kind a designing woman might give, such as the driver's-side lockable bedside storage bin to tuck away tools and other cargo.

Of course, the Titan has its work cut out for it. Brand loyalty to full-size GM, Ford and Chrysler pickup trucks remains strong, seemingly unassailable.

But if Nissan's "hit 'em with everything" strategy succeeds, and GM suffers as a result, GM can lay part of the blame at the feet of that now-departed executive, whose name I won't mention, who told Diane Allen that she would never make it in automotive exterior design.


© 2003 The Washington Post Company

spots

[quote author=Mexstan link=board=10;threadid=18484;start=0#msg173486 date=1061122839]
A top executive of General Motors Corp. once told Diane Allen that women should not be allowed to design the exteriors of cars and trucks. That ended Allen's desire to become a GM designer.


[/quote]

Yeah the top excs of GM only want butt ugly trucks (Chev 2500, Aztec thingie, full size vans)
Nissan will need a great product at a great price to break into the truck market. They need to overcome alot of brand loyalty out there. (how many Ferd guys are getting buybacks and getting another Ferd??? ) I guess time will tell..