PARIS SHOW: Townpod tunes in

Paris Motor Show News Special

It really does look like a character from the 2006 Pixar movie "Cars" but, in this case, it is not a digitally created kid's fantasy.

Nissan's Paris star, the Townpod design study, lives up to expectations raised by a teaser photo, distributed just before the show's opening, featuring just a headlight.

As visitors to the 2010 show discovered, the Townpod is a concept that combines wackiness with what looks to be a high degree of practicality.

With a style that seems bent on avoiding window areas at any cost, the Townpod approaches feasible reality in a way that invites a closer look than other determinedly out-there concepts.

Apart from the pillbox-style glass area and the impression it's about to speak to you through a potentially animatable mouth, the Townpod comes with no fewer than six doors.

Four of these doors open "suicide" fashion to allow easy passenger access, and two of which articulate from the back to expose the rear luggage area – a carved rubber "Puck" that is able to contain things like mobile phones, wallets and cups, and a second-row seat that slides forward so far (in order to maximise luggage space) that it virtually integrates into the super-thin front seat rests.

It is clearly intended as more than simply a versatile five-seater.

According to Nissan: "Townpod provides a simple platform, which each user can individually tune to their own peculiar needs. Be they a musician transporting their kit between gigs, a delicatessen proprietor distributing their wares or an architect carrying drawings to a client, each can adapt the interior of their Nissan Townpod using proprietary as well as third-party sourced accessories."

As is the way with many concepts, the Townpod's interior is lavishly presented and free of complication. Touch pads abound and there are enough multiple-function controls to make BMW's iDrive look positively archaic.

About the only items that look normal are the contorted steering wheel with wiper/washer stalks and integrated control buttons, and the accelerator and brake pedals.

Activating the Townpod is achieved via a limb extending out of the driver's seat that contains the start/stop button and forward-backward controls.
The curious Nissan concept uses essentially the same drivetrain as the Nissan LEAF electric vehicle with a mains-chargeable 48-cell battery pack and an 80kW/280Nm electric motor driving the front wheels.

Will the Townpod, in some form or another, make it into production?

Given the emergence of some unlikely "town" cars in the last couple of years – Kia Soul and Toyota Rukus for two – it is possible elements of the Townpod could appear in a future model.

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