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Though we won’t be seeing any new Nissans at the 2009 Detroit auto show, we did manage to catch the Nissan Lafesta – a mini-minivan sold in Japan – on a Michigan freeway.
Looking much like an odd amalgamation of a Versa and Cube, the awkwardly-named Lafesta (Nissan’s take on the Italian word for “party”) is much like a Mazda 5, in that it’s larger than a compact hatchback, yet smaller than a traditional minivan. Like the 5, the Lafesta has three rows of seating, and uses a four-cylinder engine (a bored-out 2.0-liter version of the Versa’s 1.8-liter I-4).
We see plenty of foreign vehicles testing in the U.S. that ultimately are never sold here, but the timing of the Lafesta’s appearance couldn’t be more interesting. Last month, Nissan executives talked about a forthcoming range of commercial vans. While some models will be designed and built exclusively for North America, Nissan acknowledged smaller units poached from overseas lineups could be part of the new range.
While Nissan continues to iron out the details on which vans it will offer in the U.S, we’re not expecting the Lafesta to be one of them – it seems well suited to small families and the like, but the lack of a cargo version precludes it from being an ideal commercial van.
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