Nissan Urvan Estate passenger van spotted in India

A week ago, rumours about Ashok Leyland launching the badge engineered Nissan NV350 Caravan in India emerged onto the interweb. Spyshots of the Nissan Urvan Estate, a 4th generation version of the passenger van developed by Nissan and one that is sold in the Philippines, have now surfaced onto the AutoCarIndia Forum.

Internationally, Nissan has already launched the E26/5th generation version of the Nissan Urvan, which is also known as the NV350 Caravan. The larger, fifth-gen model comes with a more powerful turbo diesel engine, manual and automatic gearbox options, a revised design, higher seating capacity and new safety features. From the spyshots, it appears that India will get the 4th-Gen Urvan.

The 4th generation (E25) version of the Nissan Urvan comes with a 3 liter-4 cylinder DOHC ZD30DD turbo diesel engine that outputs 105 Bhp of peak power and 209 Nm of peak torque. The engine is mated to a 5 speed manual gearbox that drives the rear wheels of the passenger van. Currently. this engine and transmission combination is specific to the Filipino market.

In the Philippines, the passenger van is available with a seating configuration that is capable of carrying 12 adults. In India, a similar seating capacity could be retained and the Nissan Urvan is likely to take on the likes of the Tata Winger and the Force Traveler. Since Ashok Leyland will launch and market this passenger van here, expect it to be positioned in the commercial segment. 

Ashok Leyland and Nissan are in a joint venture to build and market a range of small commercial vehicles. While the Ashok Leyland Dost was the first such product borne out of his collaboration, the Stile MPV (a badge engineered Nissan Evalia), the passenger carrier version of the Dost and the Partner light truck will be the other new Nissan-Ashok Leyland products that will be launched shortly.