NAIAS Highlights: Nissan Actic Concept

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Nissan
Actic Concept

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“Actic's core idea was inspired and influenced by the pace and content of modern life – and a generation of people who find time to pursue multiple passions with zeal, commitment and style,” said Tom Semple, president, NDA. “It's designed to reflect the interests and aspirations of its users, adapting to their personalities rather than imposing the vehicle's on them.”
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The Nissan Actic is a "content rich" design exercise created by Nissan Design America, Inc. (NDA) in La Jolla, Calif. The sleek, silver, bullet-shaped Actic, with its flowing body and matching trailer, makes a visionary statement about how vehicle owners will approach technology in the future. In place of traditional content-heavy vehicle control systems that become outdated immediately, Actic's handheld “key fob”-based Information Technology (IT) system allows the user to “grow” the interface with infinite flexibility and updateability.

Actic provides nearly unlimited opportunities for its users to explore and challenge the relationship between exterior and interior environments and to introduce elements of personalization by projecting video displays on a series of six roof-mounted flat LCD screens.

Other Actic innovations include dual sliding side doors, a “cross trainer”-style wheel and tire design with tread-wrapped 20-inch aluminum-alloy wheels, and a versatile, matching trailer with inflatable walls that converts to a comfortable sleeping space for three.

“Like its intended audience, Actic defies categorization. Actic is not a crossover, a hybrid or a 'sport utility anything,'” said Semple. “It is a protective capsule enclosing a modern, technically advanced interior with a warm, hand-crafted personality.”

Conceived essentially as a new form of entry-level vehicle, the Actic Concept acknowledges a growing group of users who find themselves transitioning from single life to married with small children. While these buyers' vehicle needs might now include making room for items such as child seats and baby strollers, they still enjoy socializing with friends, career-related activities and outdoor adventures.

Actic's physical presence, while bold in shape, evokes a sense of spareness and simplicity – as well as extreme efficiency. Its direct profile and subtly modulated surfacing project an aura of progressive agility, reflecting a response to the romance and reality of contemporary urban life.

Actic’s athletic proportions are characterized by long wheelbase and short overhangs, along with extremely wide body and unusually upright greenhouse. The smooth, flowing body form is interrupted only by the grille perforations, allowing for an unbroken expanse of its gorgeous, silver, sky-reflecting surface.

With no B-pillar to interfere, Actic's wide doors provide easy access for friends or activities. The front doors move forward and the rear doors move backwards, like an elevator's, creating open access for passengers and cargo. The Actic's “smart” door handles sense a pass of the hand and present themselves for instant operation.