One of the most frustrating things I’ve learned about the automotive industry is that there is a pervasive, industry-wide notion that you just can’t make money building cheap, affordable cars. Maybe it’s true. I don’t know for sure, but I do know most automakers seem to believe it, which is why here in America the average price of a new car was almost $50,000 last year, and the list of new cars you can buy today under $20,000 is so small it can’t even technically be called a list, because a list implies at least the barest degree of plurality, and there is only one car on that list: the Nissan Versa, which starts at $17,190.
In fact, if we expand the boundaries of that list in order to make it, you know, an actual list, including cars costing up to, say, $24,000, then of the 10 cars currently being sold in America that would make that list, three of those would be Nissans: the aforementioned Versa, the Sentra at $21, 590, and the Kicks Play at $21,520. Oh, the Kicks Play seems to be the last-gen version of the Kicks that they still sell; the all-new Kicks is only $21,830. So that’s actually four cars.
In this list of the top ten cheapest cars in America, we see the three Nissans (again, there should be four, but whatever) and then we have two Hyundais, two Kias, a Chevy, a Volkswagen, and a Toyota. Nissan is clearly the most committed to the low-end here. And not only do I respect the hell out of that, Nissan has always been this way.
Sure, Nissan’s a bit of a shitshow now, and, okay, maybe has been for a little while. Maybe their alliance with Renault didn’t exactly go the way they wanted and yeah, maybe their CEO had to escape Japan in a big box, but who are you, the Pope? We all make mistakes. Nissan’s made plenty of them, and is arguably still making them, and probably will make more in the future. At least, I hope they’re in a position to make more mistakes in the future, because I’m not sure any other major global automaker in the world right now is as committed to affordable cars as Nissan is.
Think about how many carmakers got where they are today on the backs of cheap, accessible cars, only to now have all but abandoned them. Ford is Ford because of the Model T, arguably the first truly affordable car ever built. Now the cheapest new Ford is the $26,000 Maverick truck, and while that’s a great machine, it’s by no means the backbone of Ford’s sales.
Volkswagen built their empire thanks to the incredible success of the Beetle, famous for being cheap and durable. Now a VW’s average price is about $45,000. Honda’s success in America was largely thanks to the very affordable and efficient Civic, and today Honda doesn’t even sell their excellent affordable Fit here anymore, and Civics range in price from $25,000 to about $35,000.
What I’m getting at is all these companies that started out selling cars that anyone could afford have moved away from affordability, and have effectively turned their backs on the cheap cars that got them where they are today. In doing so, turned their backs on the people that can only buy a cheap car, too.
Except Nissan.
Maybe they’re too stubborn or proud or stupid to give up on the low end of the market, but I’d like to believe that there’s just something in Nissan’s DNA that compels them to keep building cars that nearly anyone can afford. Remember, Nissan (a holding company started in 1928 whose name is a contraction of Nihon Sangyo) started out as Datsun, which in 1932 was building the Datsun 11, which may have been a copy of the Austin 7, though nobody can really say for sure. Copy or not, it was similar enough to the Austin 7 in the sense that it was a small, very affordable car for the masses. And that became the motivating theme behind Datsun for decades to come.
Datsun always understood that cheap didn’t mean boring, and just because you’re broke didn’t mean you didn’t deserve to be happy and stylish, and their cars reflected this idea. The Datsun B210 of the 1970s is a fantastic example of this – a dirt-cheap car that you actually wanted.
Datsun also was one of the pioneers of the small, cheap truck market in America, starting with the 1957 Datsun 220 and continuing into many tough and fun little trucks all through the 1980s and into the Nissan Hardbody era.
And it wasn’t just the obviously cheap cars and trucks that Datsun/Nissan excelled at; when they wanted to do something more stylish and performance-oriented, even when the prices went up, these cars were still bargains in their particular classes.
Take the legendary Z car, for example:
The Z car was a design triumph; the looks and feel of a Jaguar E-Type, but with much better reliability, and at half the price, if not less. If you could get past the lack of a leaping cat and a lot of unfortunate British classism, you could have a hell of a car. And, more recently, there was the GT-R:
When the GT-R came out in 2007, it was a legitimate supercar, beating the Porsche 911 around the legendary Nurburgring, all while costing $69,850.
The Nissan GT-R did it in 7:38, while a 2007 Porsche 911 Turbo did it in 7:42, and cost a hell of a lot more. Even their most expensive cars were at the low end of their respective markets. Nissan can’t help but make cheap cars, even when they’re supercars.
Nissan just seems to respect low-end cars more than almost any other automaker. Even when they make special-edition halo cars, like their special, limited-run series of Pike cars from the early 1990s, those cars were all based on some of their cheapest, most basic economy cars, just dressed up in limited-run bodies and made extremely desirable.
Who else was doing this kind of thing, at this scale? Nissan took their basic, cheap-ass Micra/March and dressed it up to make true design icons that are still in demand to this day. I know, because I drive one!
I can assure you that under that fun, retro-inspired exterior, it’s a cheap (but tough!) little economy car under there. And that’s one of the things I really love about it.
I know Nissan is up against the ropes now. And, believe me, I’ve been very aware that Nissan hasn’t really done anything that spectacular or even interesting for almost a decade now. But they’ve never given up on the low end of the market, and they’ve always treated their buyers without a lot of cash to throw around with dignity and respect, and they’ve consistently had multiple options for people who just need basic, honest transportation that isn’t so boring you’d consider slipping into a coma just to mix things up a bit.
I want Nissan to survive, and I want them to focus on what they do best, which is building decent, sometimes even fun, cheap cars. Let all the other candy-assed carmakers run away from the low end because they can’t be bothered to figure out how to make money with smaller margins or how to effectively cut costs without sacrificing quality. Let ’em run away, to their safe, pampered premium buyers.
Nissan needs to stay, down here, with the people, doing things that actually matter, and building good, affordable cars for people that need them. You can do it, Nissan. You haven’t given up yet, so why start now? You got this.
I’m not so convinced Nissan did it by choice.
The Versa and Altima are dead after the 2025 model year. The most likely outcome is a new sedan priced and sized between the current Sentra and Altima.
Selling the old Kicks for $310 less than the new one makes zero sense. It is massively inefficient to split volume over two platforms at the same price. Just yet another odd decision that shows why Nissan needs another bailout to survive.