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Nissan has added a few “sports car-inspired” design cues to its practical grocery getter.
Badged as an SR model, this facelifted Versa Note features a new grille design, smoked headlights, dark wheels, ground effects and a nice little rear spoiler. The interior has also been given a little bit of the 370Z treatment with a leather-wrapped steering wheel and suede-like fabric seats featuring orange accents.
While the little 1.6-liter fourbanger delivers the same 109 horsepower as the base model, this car will make for an aggressive-looking subcompact capable of 31 and 40 miles-per-gallon in the city and on the highway, respectively.
19 Comments on “Chicago 2014: Nissan Versa Note Gets “Sporty”...”
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Would it have been so hard to plug in the Juke’s turbo four and really have something “sporty”? I guess so.
They could have had a modern SE-R.
Exactly. Versa Note SE-R package. If other companies can built Fiat 500 turbos and Arbaths along with Chevy throwing a turbo into all their compact, subcompact, city offerings – why not?
That turbo in the Sentra with a 6MT would make an excellent modern Sentra SE-R. Had this existed it would have actually been high on my list.
Holy 2009 Honda Fit Sport, Batman!
That was my first thought as well when I saw this. I really haven’t seen many of these Versa Notes on the ground, they strike me as very decent cars. I do think that the interior has no where as much transformation possibilities as Honda’s clever “Magic Seat.” I test drove a 2013 Versa Sedan (the tall bubbly third world taxi looking one), and was not impressed. In the older Sentras with the torquey 2.0, I don’t mind the CVT. With the 109hp CVT and less sound insulation, the Versa is every bit an econobox. In fact the older ‘French’ versa sedan with a 1.8L SL interior trim is not a bad place to be for the money. Those first gen versas are also quite hefty cars (2800lbs) and do not get great mileage.
The only sporty cues that matter go under the hood or otherwise between the wheels.
Old cheapskates like me and frugal young people are this car’s market.
None of us cares about sporty.
Wasted effort and a particularly insulting one as there’s no actual performance gain, just cosmetics.
I wonder if it even has 4 wheel disk brakes. Even Toyota finally put those on the Corolla S, I think.
It won’t change thee fact that this car is unbearably depressing to drive, slower than a 20 year old saturn, and slams into gears at 30,000 miles
Slamming into gears is an impressively terrible failure for a car with a CVT…
Bummer. I kind of like the Versa Note. If Nissan had put a little more power in this thing, I think it might be a winner for them. Maybe a sample of one (me) is too small. Admittedly, if I were shopping in this size bracket, I’d probably look at a Fiat 500 or a Chevy Spark first.
Whatever did happen to all of the inexpensive pocket rocket hatchbacks we had back in the 80’s? This could have been a great resurrection of the old Suzuki Swift GTi or the Mitsubishi Colt Turbo…
Try harder Nissan.
Exterior – not bad.
Interior – way fail.
But there’s too much black trim around the inside of the rear window. Why do they do that?
Sporty looking + CVT = /Leonard Nimoy voice/ Not logical!
Lipstick + pig…
Hey, that’s a pretty nice looking pig. Mark me down for someone who does care if a car looks good, and who thinks that car looks a lot better than the old one. And I can’t stand a car with a cheap plastic steering wheel, so the leather wrap is a plus too. I probably wouldn’t BUY one unless it actually handled my my Fit too, but sharp looking beats dowdy all day long.
I was just struck with how right some of the comments are that it looks like a fit. Also how wrong (IMO) about it being a depressing drive. Probably had to start driving in the 50’s to realize how much performance is contained in asmall cheap package today.
Couldn’t they have, at the very least, upgraded the suspension so it could actually have reason for the bolstering in the seats?
That wouldn’t have cost them much at all.
I’m intrigued (dare I say a little excited?) by this new trim. I think it looks MUCH better than the 2014 version, particularly on the center stack (the old one looked like a child’s toy to me). If the price is right–say, MSRP around $20,000 but available to purchase around $17,500–this car will rise toward the top of my new-car shopping list. The things that matter most to me are size (as small as possible outside but as big as possible inside), gas mileage, reliability, and overall attractiveness. The 2014 Versa Note already checked the first two boxes, and the 2015 SR version gets a lot closer to ticking that last box. The only one that is still a question mark in my mind is reliability.