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Nissan Kicks Concept Revealed in Brazil, Looks Like Renault Captur

The 2014 Sao Paulo Auto Show is coming up shortly and Nissan has decided to do something special for its Brazilian fans and customers. This is it! It's called the Nissan Kicks and it's a concept car that looks like it has production intent.
Nissan Kicks Concept 27 photos
Photo: Nissan
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At a glance, we think the Kicks looks a lot like the Renault Captur. It's tall and somewhat narrow, with a rear that looks a bit like that of an MPV. he similarities could be a coincidence, but Nissan have just rebadged the Renault Duster and are selling it as their own 4x4 in Russia. Sooo…. a Nissan Captur could really happen.

The size and design

The 2014 Nissan Kicks Concept measures 4,300mm long, 1,800mm wide and 1,600mm tall, with a wheelbase of 2,620mm. That makes it a lot longer than the Juke, which isn't sold in Brazil because it's too expensive. The body of the concept is longer than that of the Captur, but the wheelbase is almost identical. Suspicious!

It's interesting to note that at 4.3 meters long, the Kicks is too big to be considered a supermini crossover, but too small when compared to the Qashqai compact crossover. This just shows how difficult to class this segment has become, as companies are simply making what their want and have stopped imposing any size restrictions.

Designed by Nissan’s Global Design Center in Japan, the Kicks is inspired by the busy streets of South America and the culturally diverse people who live there. It's also filled with ideas from across the globe, as Nissan Design America (NDA) in San Diego, US, and Nissan Design America Rio (NDA-R) also pitched in.

The color

Nissan says it has looked very carefully at the buying habits of Brazilian motorists, who they say are attracted to silver or white automobiles. However, bright colors are also very popular in art. So Japanese designers were tasked to combine the two. They used silver for most of the Kicks' bodywork and orange for the roof and different accent stripes.

“The main inspiration for this concept was the contrast that we saw in the grey tones of the urban settings in São Paulo and the bright natural colors that we saw near our studio in Rio,” said Robert Bauer, Chief Designer at the Rio studio. “How to combine these two, the more grey urban tones with the bright sunset orange that we would see – this combination we thought was really uniquely Brazilian.”

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About the author: Mihnea Radu
Mihnea Radu profile photo

Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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