NYC teens design $9,000 Nissan econocar

Nissan's got the right idea when it comes to sussing out what young urban car buyers want: ask them. It's more than just a focus group, though. Nissan actually worked with 18 New York teenagers to educate them about the car design process and how to spot trends. The automaker has teamed up with Sweat Equity Enterprises to give teenagers from underprivileged backgrounds a taste of the huge cornucopia of opportunities there are in the world. Six different teams competed to design the winning concept, the prize being a model of the winner. The teens turned out such impressive and clever ideas for a $9000 car that all the concepts will be brought to digital life as animated digital mockups.

An elemental three-box in fetching metallic orange dubbed the Pure came out on top. Team member Stewie Jones explained that the idea was to make the Pure a spiritual successor to the Datsun 510, trading on the same type of goodwill that sells MINIs, and building on legend like Nissan's done with generations of Skyline. Nissan gets the inside scoop on what urban youth really wants, and that's a commendably simple and effective concept. We'll get our chance to ogle the scale model of the Pure at SEMA's expansive event next week, and we wish that someone had rewarded us for incessantly drawing cars in high school, instead of dooming all of our best work to the trashbin.

[Source: New York Times via Kicking Tires]

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