Nissan building Future Golf-Fighting Hatch in the UK

Nissan has announced it will be building a yet-unnamed hatchback in the UK that it will aim with competing directly with the Volkswagen Golf. The mid-sized hatchback will be based on the styling of the Invitation concept shown at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show. The model will be built at Nissan's Sunderland, UK, factory. 

Nissan will give the new model a name closer to launch. It is positioning the car as a major part of its Nissan Power 88 model push. 

Nissan says that building the car in the UK will add 225 jobs to the factory and about 900 jobs to parts suppliers. The Sunderland plant will build about 80,000 units of the new car a year. It will push the factory's output up to 550,000 cars a year and make it the largest automotive factory in the UK. The factory already produces the Qashqais, Note and Juke. It will also begin building the Leaf later this year. 

The announcement of the new model was made on April 10 by UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Nissan Chief Operating Officer Toshiyuki Shiga.

During its debut at the Geneva Auto Show, Nissan said that the Invitation was aiming for class-leading fuel economy and emissions below 100g/km of CO2. It is built on Nissan's new V-Platform that also underpins the next Micra. Nissan claims that the new platform is lighter leading to more agile handling. The suspension uses MacPherson struts in the front and a torsion beam rear axle. The concept was 4.15m long, 1.74m wide and 1.47m tall. When discussing the car in Geneva, Nissan did not disclose any specifics about the engines it would use.