Nissan Motor Co, Japan's second-largest automaker, said it will completely design models in Europe for the first time to meet local tastes and gain share in a market where it lags Volkswagen AG and General Motors Corp.
Three of Nissan's 28 vehicle models due for release from next April until 2008 will be designed in Europe "from start to production," said the Tokyo-based carmaker's chief designer Shiro Nakamura in an interview at last week's Paris International Motor Show.
Like Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co, Nissan sells fewer cars in Europe than in the US and Japan because customers think its designs lack styling and distinction, said Graeme Maxton, managing director of Salzburg, Austria-based consultancy Autopolis. Toyota's bestseller in Europe is the Yaris compact car, designed on the continent.
"Japanese cars are just too bland compared with those from Europe," said Yoshio Inamura, who helps manage about US$365 million at Tokyo-Mitsubishi Asset Management in Tokyo. "The European auto market is very different from the US and Asia, they need a different approach."
Distinctive styling is so crucial to brand image in Europe that Bayerische Motoren Werke AG's chief designer Chris Bangle and the head of design at Volkswagen's Audi AG luxury unit Walter de Silva are regarded as media stars at industry shows.
Nissan's Nakamura, 53, is one of Japan's few design stars, appearing on magazine covers and television advertisements in Japan, the US and Europe. The graduate from Pasadena, California's Art Center College began his design career at General Motors in 1985. He was hired in 1999 from General Motors' Isuzu Motors Ltd affiliate by Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn.
The preeminence of European carmakers in style shows up in the choices that fashion magazines such as Elle, Vogue and Wallpaper make when picking backdrops for their photography.
BMW's Mini Cooper, DaimlerChrysler AG's Smart compact cars, Renault SA's Scenic hatchback and the Mercedes SLK convertible are featured more often than cars of Toyota, Honda or South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co.
"When you see a Toyota, many Europeans ask, is that a Nissan or a Honda?" Maxton said.
Asian carmakers "still haven't been able to focus on the tastes of the single successful women in their late 20s and 30s," he said.
Asian carmakers have a total 18.5 percent market share in Europe, about half their US market share.
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