Global NCAP has released footage of a 2019 Nissan NP300 Hardbody being crashed into a 2015 Nissan Navara in a bid to demonstrate the safety differences between the two bakkies.

Of course, in November 2019, Global NCAP and the Automobile Association of South Africa released a second round of safety evaluations of locally available vehicles. In that test, the SA-built Hardbody scored zero stars for safety, leading to calls for government to take “action”.

The global safety authority said this latest vehicle-to-vehicle crash test “graphically demonstrates the double standard currently applied by Nissan and other car makers to vehicle safety in Africa”, adding the difference in safety performance between the two bakkies “is a matter of life and death”.

According to Global NCAP, the driver dummy in the Hardbody would have “likely sustained fatal injuries”, while the driver of the equivalent second-hand European-built model would have “likely walked away from the crash”.

“This is a very dramatic car-to-car crash test which uniquely illustrates the double standard in vehicle safety performance between models sold in Europe and those sold in Africa,” said David Ward, CEO and president of Global NCAP.

"The difference in crashworthiness is extraordinary. The new Nissan Hardbody performs significantly worse than the second-hand Nissan Navara, to the extent that the driver in the new African Nissan would likely have died from their injuries but the driver from the second-hand European Nissan would have walked away."

Saul Billingsley, executive director of the FIA Foundation, asked the Japanese automaker for answers.

“Does Nissan believe an African life is worth less than a European life? If not, how does the company explain the shocking safety gap between these two vehicles demonstrated by Global NCAP? If we are to meet the 2030 target of halving road deaths we must stamp out this kind of unethical behaviour by some in the car industry.”

Willem Groenewald, CEO of the AA, described the results as “extremely worrying”, adding they pointed to a “major deficiency in the quality of vehicles available in Africa”.

“We have for a long time been concerned that vehicles available in Africa are inferior to those in other markets such as Europe and Asia, and these results seem to confirm that concern,” Groenewald said.

“What this car-to-car crash also demonstrates is a complete disdain for African vehicle consumers and their safety at the expense of profit. It also again highlights the need for stricter regulation of standards and tougher controls in terms of allowing these inferior vehicles on to African roads,” he added.

Watch the crash-test video below and check out the result below that...