2005 Nissan X-Trail

compact - cuv

​     With the recent boom in the SUV market its not surprising to see that Nissan would soon release a compact SUV, to gain support in the vast market of the compact SUV.  

    ​From a company that has vastly expanded its truck and SUV model lines in recent years the X-Trail was a perfect designed model to enter Nissan’s large and well-considered truck and SUV model line.  Although a little too late to enter the game Nissan has gone ahead and entered its new X-Trail model into the market anyways in the hopes of attaining some of the market away from its competitors and lure back buyers who went elsewhere before cause Nissan did not have a model in that market before.  The new versatile X-Trail has been fitted with all of Nissan’s new key design features, which some of them are fitting like the front grille but some are not like the new bigger headlamps.  The front headlamps on this little SUV are a bit too much to handle since they seem to overshadow the rest of the front end.  Designed well to fit the X-Trail the front headlamps should have been toned down to make room for a bigger grille, which would have created a broader looking front end.  Although the front headlamps make this little SUV seem a bit bigger so in a way they are a well thought out design feature.  

     A nice touch to the X-Trail’s design is that Nissan has added larger wheel flares to bring out a more off road look to this little SUV.  The flares and non-plastic looking body cladding are followed nicely onto the rear where Nissan has seemed to borrow a design feature from one of its competitors but Nissan has made this feature a bit better.  The feature are the rear tail lamps which look a lot like that of the Honda CRV’s but Nissan has made them bigger, which has also added to the better night visibility but has overshadowed the rest of the back of the X-Trail.  As with the rear hatch the side windows seem to end abruptly and make you wonder what else should be there or why did Nissan stop there.  All around the new Nissan X-Trail is a well thought out model for the market it is entering but as with Nissan’s other models it makes its presence seem bigger than it real should be.