The French are doing good business in the European van segment with the Renault Trafic. The passenger car version of the popular bus recently received a major facelift and the nearly identical Nissan NV300 recently followed suit.
Anyone who mentions one type in the van world is almost always talking about several models. Volkswagen and Mercedes are important exceptions to that rule, but Renault has always faithfully shared its Trafic. Initially it was the Opel Vivaro, but later the Nissan NV300 and the Fiat Talento were added to the list.
However, Opel was taken over by major competitor PSA, which now includes Fiat as Stellantis. You already understand: the Opel and Fiat adventure was over. Nissan remains faithful to the Trafic and still carries this model as NV300 on the European market. Both brands recently carried out an extensive facelift to this medium-sized buyer. The news is big in both cases, yet the two remain largely identical at the front as well.
Stricter
This means that the designers had to look for a nose that does not look out of place for both Renault and Nissan. That is why the purchasers got a fashionable front with a large grille and tighter headlights than before. The headlight units are flattened, especially at the top, so that the buses view the world with a stricter look.
There are of course also differences. For example, the LED strips in the headlight units at Nissan are slightly different than at Renault. The ‘recess’ that adorns the headlights on the underside is filled with a chrome strip at Renault. Another difference: at Renault, the brand logo takes a big bite out of the hood, while the Nissan logo resides entirely within the framework of the grille.
People version
In both cases, for the time being, it concerns the passenger variant on yellow license plate, which is called ‘Combi’ at both Renault and Nissan. However, you can count on the order versions to follow the gray license plate, albeit with less chrome and perhaps fewer LED lights. On the above ‘sliding plate’ we used the order version of the NV300 on the left, for the simple reason that we could not find a suitable image of the ‘old’ Combi.
Mitsubishi Express
Incidentally, this delivery van is recently also available as Mitsubishi. However, the Mitsubishi Express is only available in Australia and New Zealand and – like all other van versions – still has the old nose.