First of all, I’d like to gloat a bit, because this is a bit of news I predicted back in 2022. Over at The Old Site, when there was some early speculation about Nissan launching a small electric city car, I suggested – no, demanded – that this new small EV take its design inspiration from Nissan’s famous Pike Factory “boutique cars” of the late ’80s and early ’90s. Now, it seems like Nissan is doing just that, at least according to what Nissan Europe’s Head of Design, Giovanny Arroba, told Autocar. This is, of course, very good news.
Back when I wrote my article suggesting Nissan use their Pike cars – which, if you’re unfamiliar, were low-volume dramatically retro-styled cars based on the Nissan Micra – as the stylistic basis for their new EV city car, I thought that the new Renault 5 EV might be the basis for these new cars. Now, it appears Renault’s equally retro-styled Twingo EV will form the basis of this new EV city car, which Nissan will call the Wave.
The question now is just how this new Wave will incorporate the styling and inspiration of the Pike cars, as Arroba stated, which could be tricky because, of course, there’s not just one Pike car. There were four, the Be-1, Pao, Figaro, and S-Cargo:
While these all share some common traits – they’re cute, plucky, sort of modern-yet-retro, friendly, and so on – they all have quite different sorts of looks and character. Going clockwise from upper left, we have the Be-1, which took inspiration from other industrial design objects like teapots and cameras; the Pao, which had a sort of adventurer/safari/cute-rugged vibe; the Figaro, with its elegant roadster looks, in colors named for the four seasons; and finally the S-Cargo, a fun delivery vehicle with a name and look based on a silly pun for garlicky French snails.
So, what form will this Pike-inspiration take? A direct homage to one of the cars, or bits of all of them, or just a more general Pike-like playful approach to the design? Then there’s the car that’s forming the basis for the Wave, the Twingo, which already has buckets of character and charm of its own:
…this design is clearly based on the original Twingo, and I think Renault’s designers did a fantastic job updating that car’s iconic look:
Assuming – I think safely – that Nissan won’t have infinite money to throw at this, it’s likely the changes to the Twingo would need to be limited to the body parts that are actually easier to change, not the parts that form the major unibody or even some of the bigger stampings like the doors. If I had to speculate, which I do, I’d guess Nissan’s designers will have the front and rear bumper skins, lighting elements, hood, wheels, mirrors, and maybe the ability to add-on some detail to the doors.
I suppose door skins could change, but based on how lazy Nissan was with their re-skin of the Mitsubishi Outlander into the new Rogue PHEV, I’m going to err on the side of less instead of more. So, let’s say this is what Nissan has to work with. So what could they do to make a Pike-ified wave?
Let’s sketch some ideas. By hand, I mean, because even if it’ll be all slick, I don’t want to use any AI. Quick and dirty, human-style.
First off, I just have to get this one out of my system as a happy Pao owner. Here’s a fairly direct Pao-style Nissan Wave:
Our own feverish designer the Bishop suggested the fake hinges – I was thinking maybe they could be indicator repeaters–and the black stripe on the back window suggesting the flip-open windows of the OG Pao. This is, of course, pretty unlikely that they’d do something so specific to the Pao, so I tried playing with a more general playful sort of Pike-inspired idea, though to be honest the overall shape of the Twingo sort of limits things to the Be-1 or Pao, but still, worth a try:
Hm, that turned out a little more like a strange Colani sort of design than I intended; I think all those circles are a bit much. But still, you get the general idea. I think there’s a lot that Nissan could do on the Twingo platform to make something with that Pike-like sensibility, that sort of appealing whimsical quality, and I really hope Nissan means what they say here, because a new Pike-like city car would be fantastic.
Do it, Nissan!
Their reskin of the Renault 5 into the new Micra was somehow more involved but also completely obviously a Renault 5. The Micra gets a new front and rear end (as expected) but also got reskinned doors with different character lines, and round wheel arch creases not squared off like the 5. It somehow looks like a Renault 5 in a bad costume, and I bet they could have saved themselves a bit of cash by not changing the door skins and nobody would think any differently.
I doubt that the greenhouse would change, beyond possible minor changes to the shape of perhaps the glass in the rear doors and hatch*. But they might go for the door skins, if they follow the 5’s playbook!
*See the difference between the VW Up/Skoda Citigo
If the Wave is almost as fast as the Pike cars, then it’s an appropriate name. You’ll be waving much faster cars around you all the time. Which of course, Torch doesn’t seem to mind. But this thing sure as hell ain’t gonna have that Big Altima Energy™.