Nissan’s Mixim Concept Car in detail

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Two special design features take their inspiration from the racetrack, but have been made significantly more practical for the High Street. A fourth seat is housed in the luggage area behind the front seat module.

Mixim has a central driving position with two passenger seats positioned in a cloverleaf pattern beside and slightly behind the centre chair.

To get to the driver’s seat, Nissan designers have made sure there is no need to clamber over the passenger seat first. To ease access to the centre, the seat module swivels sideways by 35 degrees.

Ingress and egress is made easier still by the adoption of doors that also form an integral part of the roof.

But rather than create a door that has to be opened impractically wide, Mixim’s doors have a scissor opening action. Instead of opening conventionally, they move out fractionally before swinging vertically forwards to allow easy access to the interior. In keeping with the rest of the car, the doors open electrically.

“The inspiration for Mixim’s design development was ‘99 per cent Evil, one per cent Cute’. This ‘Mini-Monster’ theme was developed from a spectrum of Japanese computer game animations,” says Inoue. “We wanted to create an icon for this digital generation… something that went far beyond the stereotypes to which their parents tend to be attracted.”

Once inside, driver and companions enjoy a spacious interior with instruments and controls that wouldn’t look out of place in a computer game.

Key concepts behind the interior design were a ‘fusion of virtual and real’ and ‘an extension of self’. The results include the sensation of being inside an F1-style cockpit, the direct links between hand and eye movements and the structure of the wing-like centre panel.

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