Nissan decided to change its compact-segment contender and traded the Sunny name with the Almera or Pulsar, depending on the market.
The Japanese carmaker design team was not in its best mood when it designed the five-door Almera. Its bland styling was truly different than other compact hatchbacks from the market, but not necessarily in a good way. It looks like Nissan relied more on the car’s qualities more than its appearance.

At the front, the Almera showed a similar front fascia as the Primera P10 generation with horizontal headlights and a small grille between them that sported the Nissan logo at its upper side. The bumper featured an additional center grille crossed by a slat extended from side to side over the fake side air intakes. From its sides, the Almera featured a third glass area behind the rear doors, with an arched C-pillar. Thus, Nissan could install the same doors like those from the Almera sedan. In the back, the carmaker installed wide taillights split between the rear quarter panels and the tailgate.

Inside, the bland design continued with a simple, curved dashboard and a low profiled instrument cluster that hosted two larger dials for the speedometer and tachometer, plus the gauges for the fuel level and the coolant temperature. On the center stack, Nissan placed the audio system above the climate control unit. In the back, the split-folding seatback allowed the owner to increase the trunk size.

Under the hood, Nissan offered the Almera a choice of four engines and paired them with a standard five-speed manual transmission. The 1.6-liter gasoline unit was available with a four-speed automatic as an option.