Known for its breath taking beauty, Murano is a series of islands linked by bridges in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. It lies about 1.5 kilometers north of Venice and measures about 1.5 km across with a population of just over 5,000. It is famous for its glass making.
The well written travel site lifeinitaly.com enlightens, “Murano Island – A Glassmaker’s Paradise Since 1291, this tiny Venetian island has been the home of Venice’s glassmaking industry. Glass production was moved to Murano Island from the main part of Venice because its production posed quite a fire hazard.
Soon enough, Murano Island became quite a hot spot for glass production indeed. Glassmaking has quite an exalted tradition in Venice. It is an art form, after all. In the 14th century, the daughters of Murano’s biggest glassmaking families were allowed to marry into the Venetian nobility.”
Nissan has made a noble effort in building a car that many women find desirable.
Please meet the Nissan Murano.
The Nissan Murano is a mid-size crossover SUV first sold by Nissan in December 2002 as a 2003 model. Nissan introduced the Murano as its first crossover SUV for the United States and Canada. Initially designed at Nissan America in La Jolla, California, the first generation Murano was based on the Nissan FF-L platform first used by the third generation Altima. The single European version of the Murano began sales in 2004.[adToAppearHere]
The Nissan news desk expands upon this exciting female friendly vehicle’s benefits.
- Like the first-generation Murano, the 2015 version is a highly sculptural, highly emotional design – one that once again stands out in a field known more for uniformity and utility-based styling.
- “Murano owners live in an environment – home, work and car – that is beautiful, well-designed and efficiently run. They are social and embrace technology,” said Nakamura. “The new Murano had to embrace all of these values, while also taking a major leap forward in terms of its ‘Wow’ factor.”
- Working to capture the breathtaking spirit and artistry of the first Murano, the designers began by concentrating on the new vehicle’s sculptural qualities. Breaking the usual order of sketching, computer renderings and then clay modeling, the Murano team started working with small three-dimensional clay forms – literally exploring organic shapes and volumes with mini desktop sculptures. The process helped narrow down a new Nissan design direction focused on lightness and efficiency.
- A Lightness of Form
“One of the central constructs for both the exterior and interior of the new Murano was to ‘elevate your experience,’ which is counterintuitive to the heaviness and chunkiness of the traditional sport utility vehicle,” said Nakamura. “This helped inspire the push for leading-edge aerodynamic and three key elements of our future designs – the V-Motion front end, signature lighting and the ‘floating’ roofline.” - In keeping with the idea of futuristic travel, the designers sought to create a gravity-like power to pull viewers into the design visually, while defying gravity with a lightness of form through the use of glass and flowing lines. The prominent glass areas of the first-generation Murano were retained and expanded with the new design, including the use of its jet-inspired roof and D-pillars that appear disconnected from the roof that help visually lighten the cabin. The result is a unique floating feeling that can be recognized from very far away.
- Another key element is the continued refinement of the boomerang-style headlights and taillights, which were originally introduced on the Nissan 370Z. For use with the new Murano, distinctive Signature lights were added, accentuating the boomerang, shapes, and were slimmed and pushed to extremes to look like they flow with the wind. “The LED Signature lights, with their LED Daytime Running Light accents, are instantly recognizable at night. While becoming a Murano signature, they were an engineering challenge, requiring extensive tuning to refine the shape and light intensity,” explained Nakamura.
- The available LED headlights provide excellent efficiency and durability (versus halogen and xenon lights). The design of the standard LED taillights had to be balanced with the required crossover utility, with the final shape seamlessly integrated into the rear glass, conveying a high-tech quality.
- Murano’s sculptural body sides also created an engineering challenge, especially in the strong curvature of the rear fender stampings. While similar in dimensions to previous generation Muranos, the new design is slightly lower, wider and longer, enhancing the aerodynamics while not compromising the desired crossover height and stance. The lower rocker panels offer a balance of aerodynamics and ruggedness. Other critical details, such as the active grille shutter, fender lip moldings, rear bumper surfacing, rear tire deflectors and integrated rear spoiler help achieve a more than 16 percent improvement in overall aerodynamics (versus the previous generation design).
- “The designers and engineers invested three times the normal wind tunnel testing of the new Murano to get to its 0.31 coefficient of drag, on par with many sports cars,” added Nakamura.
- A New Way to Travel
“Beyond the sense of elegant style and premium features, owners of the first two generations often tell us about the ‘effortlessness of Murano’ – the great front view, the low instrument panel, the comfort and ease of operation. These are all things we kept and exaggerated in the new model,” said Nakamura. - The exterior theme of futuristic travel and refined intensity continue throughout the Murano interior, starting the moment the doors are opened with its available advanced lighting system, open and comfortable feeling and use of premium materials.
- Continuing the idea of a concept car brought to production, the new Murano shares the look and feel of the Resonance. The upscale social lounge interior, for example, creates an inviting and comfortable atmosphere. The instrument panel height is lower than previous Muranos. Centered between the outer wings is a large information and control center with an available 8.0-inch color display with multi-touch control. Keeping with the idea of “beauty with simplicity,” the number of audio and navigation switches has been reduced by 60 percent – from 25 to 10 – for a more user-friendly experience.
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- Sources: brainyquote.com, Wikipedia, fciwomenswrestling.com, fciwomenswrestling2.com, FCI Elite Competitor, femcompetitor.com, photos thank you Wikimedia
- Commons.http://www.lifeinitaly.com/tourism/veneto/murano-island.asphttp://www.autobytel.com/car-buying-guides/features/11-influential-women-pick-10-best-new-cars-for-2015-128966/http://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/presskits/us-2015-nissan-murano-press-kit
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