Pour one out for yet another manual transmission that’s gone to the great parking lot in the sky. Going forward, the little Nissan Versa will only be available with a CVT.
If you’ve yer heart set on a stickshift Versa, it’s good advice to move fast to find whatever’s left on the ground or tucked behind storage containers in a far corner of the lot. Automotive News seems to have been the first to learn that the five-speed was canceled, choosing to speculate that Trump’s tariff taxes played a part in its demise since the model is built in Mexico. They are probably not wrong.
.As for official sputterings from PR types at Nissan, the crew at C&D were told the company is “focusing on the most popular Versa grades that deliver the strongest business performance and are in line with what customers are looking for.” The first part of those deliverables are a dead giveaway to supporting the notion that tariff taxes may be playing an outsized role in this decision.
In fact, it is in all likelihood that the Sentra manual was the last mass market five-speed car on sale today. With its departure, we’re left with other handshakers but all with more gears. Friend of the site Murilee Martin has done a great job chronicling the last appearance of certain transmission types in this country ( three on the tree, three-speed autos, four-speed manuals, et al) so perhaps the Versa will make his list later on.
Through the first three months of this year, sales of Nissan-branded vehicles are up 6.3 percent, cresting the quarter million mark. Over 19,000 Versas were sold, a huge jump from last year while the Rogue remains its bread and butter with 62,102 sales.
[Image: Nissan]
Become a TTAC insider. Get the latest news, features, TTAC takes, and everything else that gets to the truth about cars first by subscribing to our newsletter.
