Paragon prototypes in the spotlight with the Nissan Qazana

Paragon Rapid Technologies, a leading UK Rapid Prototyping specialist have recently been involved in the production of a concept vehicle for Nissan. The Nissan Qazana was showcased at the Geneva Motor Show where it received rave reviews. The vehicle was built from scratch, as a GRP shell over a welded sub-frame, utilising a donor engine and drive train.

Door mirror master patterns were machined from acrylic with a highly polished surface finish, before producing silicone tools and clear PU castings. The grille is a one piece clear epoxy casting, produced from a CNC master and silicone tooling. The ribs on the back of the grille are fully visible through the clear polished front face, creating an optical illusion of depth and form.

Front lights were fully CNC machined cans and lenses, painted and polished with vacuum metalised reflectors. The "wave" design directional indicator is cast PU from silicone tooling. The light source is a combination of Superbrite LEDs around a Luxion Star for the main beam and a flexible LED array for the "halo" side lights.

Finally, the innovative rear lamp units were machined from ABS, vacuum metalised and lacquered. The lenses were machined from acrylic with the internal lens tinted red with lacquer and the external lens smoked. Illumination is via optical fibres with a single central light source. The fibres feed up through a loom with 127 individual strands per side, emitting through custom made tubular holders to position the light just below the surface of the lens.

Production of the Qazana, securing many manufacturing and supply chain jobs in the North East of England, is due to start soon at Nissan's Sunderland plant with release in September 2010. For more information please click here