With its "modern living" theme, Nissan's Intima appears to be the most production ready concept car in the automaker's '07 Tokyo Motor Show lineup.
The concept's "sharp-edged lines and organic panel surfaces" offer a fresh but not entirely unfamiliar take on Nissan's existing styling cues, but the Intima is notably larger than the current product lineup. Perhaps we're stretching, but could we be looking at a thinly-disguised design concept for Infiniti's next flagship sedan?
The Intima certainly boasts plenty of luxurious touches, from the exterior, high-tech LCD lighting, to the blue, backlit instrument cluster, a color scheme that extends throughout the cabin. The instrument panel, incidentally, is designed to look like it's floating between woodgrain panels. There are plenty of grips and storage compartments, including one, in the front passenger's door, large enough for a purse, and another, in the rear center console, in which to chill beverages. A four-zone smart climate control system uses an organic grape seed filter to remove soot and pollen.
The interior offers a clean design that emphasizes functionality but is also carefully crafted to give the interior the look and feel of a room that might find its way into the pages of Architectural Digest, Nissan hopes. The front passenger seat also rotates 80 degrees to make it easier to get in and out of the vehicle.
The suicide-door configuration of the doors into the cabin are another important facet of the design. The front doors open the standard way but the hinges for the rear doors are behind the rear-seat passengers and the door swings out to the rear of the vehicle rather than to the front. The configuration helps make the Intima easier to enter, which is becoming more and more important as the population's of industrial countries, such as Japan's, age.
The Nissan Safety Shield System, meanwhile, features a variety of advanced technologies, including Distance Control Assist and the Around View Monitor, which gives the driver a birds-eye view, as if looking down at the vehicle, to assist in changing lanes or parking.
Nissan's big offering is another example of the shift in Japanese powertrain philosophy. It features a fuel-efficient, clean diesel V-6. Though the automaker isn't offering many details, it's clearly accepting the huge demand for diesels in Europe, and the potential growth in both the U.S. and Japan, where fast-rising fuel prices have motorists rethinking their long-held opposition to the high-mileage technology.
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