It seems the name guys at Nissan have been hanging out with Volkswagen's name guys. The Nissan Qashqai's name (pronounced "kash-kai") is just as clumsy as to spell as the VW Touareg. And like the VW Touareg, the Qashqai is named after a tribe-this time, a nomadic tribe in the Zagros mountains in Southwestern Iran.
The Qashqai will be available with a manual, automatic, or CVT transmission coupled to a choice of one of four engines, two that use spark plus and two that don't. There's no official word yet on whether this new model will make it to the U.S. market, the Qashqai goes on sale in Europe in early 2007.