Back in the saddle
Nissan re-enters the mainstream hatch market...
ight years ago, Nissan stiffed out of trying to compete against mainstream five-door hatches. Making money as an also-ran brand was impossible, and aiming upmarket to rival the Volkswagen Golf would have been even more hopeless. Instead, Nissan hit on a rather brilliant scheme to get £25k-odd for a family hatch: the Qashqai.
But guess what? Though the QQ does indeed keep loads of people in Wearside in work, not everyone wants a crossover. I don’t. Mainstream hatchbacks still sell more, and manufacturers without one get excluded from vital fleet deals. So now that Nissan is feeling more confident, it wants back in. Hence the Pulsar.
Unfortunately the Pulsar doesn’t present itself as a particularly confident car. Oh, the styling is fairly chipper, melding Qashqai tropes onto a lowered silhouette. But the interior is cheap, the engines meek, the driving experience forgettable.
To be fair, Nissan never pretends it’s a car for drivers in the way a Focus or 308 or Leon is. But it does claim it’s better
Evalue. OK, let’s look. The opening price is £15,995 and for that you get a sanitary 115bhp 1.2-litre turbo petrol engine. The same price will get you a Focus or 308 with their small turbos too. They all have aircon; the Nissan has cruise and alloys and Bluetooth, but the others have most of that. Higher up the Pulsar range, Nissan does offer some useful safety kit such as autonomous braking, blind-spot detection and bird’s-eye-view cameras. But even so, the Pulsar isn’t the conspicuous value Nissan would have you believe.
The 1.2 turbo runs sweetly at urban and surburban speeds, but on major roads it’s sluggish, hampered further by long gears. The steering is accurate and progressive, and it’s all reassuringly stable. Just not much fun. The ride is quiet, if firmer than you might expect. The 1.5 diesel alternative is also well-mannered if short on force, and competitive on economy.
But hang on. The Pulsar does have one outstanding feature. Rear legroom is vast. More than an Octavia, or even Mondeosized cars. Minicabbies, step right up.