'It wasn't our decision' to axe NP200, says Nissan SA boss

Nissan SA’s managing director says it wasn’t the brand’s decision to discontinue the NP200, adding the firm is “working on the replacement” for the half-tonne bakkie…

Nissan South Africa’s managing director says “it wasn’t our decision to discontinue NP200”, emphasising that the company was forced to cancel the half-tonne bakkie’s successor at the last moment.

After 16 years, production of the Nissan NP200 officially ended at the Japanese firm’s Rosslyn factory in March 2024, despite the fact there was still clear local demand for what had for several years served as the market’s last-surviving half-tonne bakkie.

Maciej Klenkiewicz, Nissan South Africa and Independent Markets Africa Managing Director, however, suggested to Cars.co.za during an interview at the South African Auto Week 2024 in Cape Town that the firm had no choice in the matter.

“It wasn’t our decision to discontinue NP200. We had plans to replace NP200 with a successor. Unfortunately, due to the geopolitical situation in Russia – in fact, the crisis which we have between Ukraine and Russia – we had to cancel the project which was a replacement for NP200,” Klenkiewicz told us.

“The successor was supposed to be built there, in Russia, with the platform from Renault. Right now, we are of course working on the replacement, but the process is starting from scratch. So, I cannot say that it was a ‘business decision’ – we had a plant which we unfortunately had to drop,” he explained.

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In October 2022, Nissan announced its withdrawal from Russia. Around a year later, Nissan SA revealed that it had officially entered a “formal consultation phase to restructure the business“, thanks largely to the then-looming end of production of the NP200.

At the time, Nissan SA said it had earlier lined up an “immediate replacement model for NP200”. However, the automaker said that model was “no longer viable” due to significantly reduced volumes brought about by the “geopolitical situation in Russia”.

As a reminder, the Dacia Logan-based NP200 single cab arrived on the scene as a replacement for the Nissan 1400 back in 2008, boasting an 800 kg payload. The workhorse had the local half-tonne bakkie segment all to itself since the close of 2017, when General Motors quit Mzansi, thus marking the end of the road for the Chevrolet Utility.