GRR Garage: Nissan X-Trail – What price progress?

The first car I chose to drive on the day was by far the oldest at the event, a low-mileage and totally original 1975 Honda Civic, a bright yellow example used by Honda UK for the model’s sales brochure back in the mid-1970s, and now re-acquired by Honda’s PR department 43-years on. 

The little Honda was a revelation, for so many reasons, ensuring many smiles per gallon with its wondrous simplicity and lack of gadgets and electronic aids. One of the greatest surprises in the 1975 Civic though was its panoramic visibility, with its slim windscreen pillars and large rear window, with big rear-view mirror to match. 

I couldn’t help but make the contrast with this and the Nissan X-Trail long-termer car that I also drove moments later. The Nissan has enough technology and driver aids to embarrass Profession Gadget, with cameras dotted around its sizeable exterior (including helicopter view) to assist parking and manoeuvring in tight spaces. 

These cameras can be a great boon in such conditions. The huge, chunky A-pillars and small back window (and rear-view mirrors) in relation to the X-Trails overall size, however, are less welcome, especially when stepping out of the old, airy Civic.

While I totally understand the need for windscreen pillars to be thicker these days in the interests of safety and roll-over protection, they can also be a hindrance to driver safety as they reduce visibility.

While using the Nissan for a long Continental jaunt recently, the X-Trail’s weighty front screen pillars obscured the view of approaching cyclists and motorbike riders on roundabout and angled junctions more than once, causing some sharp braking and embarrassed, apologetic waves to the rider. Admittedly this is far less of an issue in the RHD car on the ‘correct’ side of the road here in the UK, although occasionally it can still be an issue.

Likewise, the view through the back window in the Nissan (as with many other modern SUVs, crossovers and hatchback) is also too restricted, and amplified by a tiny rear-view mirror that partly blocks some of the forward view (with its rain sensors, automatic headlamp control and blacked-out area), and shows just a slit view of the rear. The reverse sensors and rear-view camera display on the central infotainment screen help here, but call me old-fashioned, as I still prefer to look back the traditional way when reversing.

In nearly all other aspects, the 40-years plus separating the old Honda Civic and this Nissan shine through, with the decades of motoring progress clearly evident in the X-Trail (comfort, safety, ventilation, and so on), even if it doesn’t quite put the same smile on your face as the 1975 Civic.

Photography by Tom Shaxson