You gotta give Nissan credit for setting its sights high.
With its new, and extremely odd, Murano CrossCabriolet, Nissan hopes to snag buyers away from the Lexus RX, Audi A4 and BMW 3 Series. That’s certainly a strange mix of competitors, but at about $47K, it’s certainly priced with those vehicles. But will it actually take sales from them?
Maybe that’s not such a far-fetched proposition.
By all accounts, the Murano CrossCabriolet shouldn’t even exist. At any other automaker, the idea would have never gone further than a designer sketch or, at the most, a one-off auto show concept. A convertible SUV just isn’t on the shopping list of most carbuyers. Yet somehow the lure of creating something entirely different prevailed over common sense and the Murano convertible has been born.
If you’ve ever been to a topless beach you know the result. The lure of seeing sleek and sexy topless bodies; destroyed by the reality of something that really has no business going topless. That’s the Murano.
That said, though, Nissan did its homework on this vehicle, giving it Infiniti-like luxury touches and creating a design that isn’t nearly as awkward as photos may have you believe. While it’s not quite beach-ready, one could be forgiven for wanting to take a long second look.
Since there’s nothing else on the road like it, maybe $47K isn’t too much to fork over for exclusivity factor. For the guy in SoCal who doesn’t want to be just another BMW, Lexus or Audi statistic, the Murano CrossCabriolet might make sense.
Mike Drongowski, Nissan’s senior manager of product planning, told Autonews,
We continue to challenge what people think about what they drive and why they drive what they do. It might not be a typical choice for a product, but it’s consistent with who we are as a brand and our history of innovation.
Nissan’s brand experience indeed continues to evolve into one of innovation and cutting-edge design, and in that respect the Murano CrossCabriolet fits right in. Who knows, if this thing takes off we could see similar models coming soon…
Do you think the Murano CrossCabriolet could inspire a convertible Lexus RX or BMW X5?
-tgriffith
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Its good to see new models from various brands to compete with each other in a healthy way, and in the process the consumers would be benefited with new high performing models.
@ Chris
Oh it’s real alright, as I’m sure your local Nissan dealer will happily explain!
They are not seriously building this, are they? I imagine the Nissan talks going something like this.
Well the Cube is ugly, but just not ugly enough
But what about the Juke?
Even uglier, but still not ugly enough
What if we made the Murano a convertible?
Great idea!!! That will definitely be ugly enough.
who on earth would buy this? It looks they tried to modernize a PT Cruiser-modern retro?