Nissan is to bring a quartet of concept cars to the Geneva Motor Show and promises that two of them will be world premieres. One of those cars we already know to be the Invitation: previewing a likely replacement for the Note mini-MPV that is expected to enter production in 2013.

Unfortunately the Japanese manufacturer has remained remarkably coy about the second concept other than to say that 'details of the second unveil are being kept closely guarded until the show itself.' This has led to plenty of speculation in the Car Enthusiast office and frankly we will be disappointed if the LEAF-R, a production-ready petrol hybrid that mates a 70kW motor to a 3.8-litre V6 engine from the Nissan GTR, does not make an appearance.*

Nissan has also confirmed that its all-electric country manor on wheels; the e-NV200, will discard its 'I heart New York' cap for an appearance in Switzerland. The petrol version of the seven-seat MPV was recently chosen as New York's next generation 'yellow' cab and Nissan is hoping the electric variant can be as popular this side of the pond.

The last part of the concept quartet will be the Juke Nismo Concept that we saw in Tokyo, which is the first in the line of NISMO (Nissan's motorsports division) tuned cars that Nissan hopes will one day rival the tuning houses of BMW, Mercedes-Benz etc. With all the furore caused by the Juke-R however a slightly tuned Juke with Nismo styling package is probably going to seem a bit tame in comparison.

* There is no such thing as a LEAF-R outside of the idle minds of the Car Enthusiast team but boy would it be interesting!

Paul Healy - 7 Feb 2012