Growth Drives Nissan Frontier, Xterra, to Canton, Miss.

Smyrna, Tenn. - Change is coming to Nissan. Long-time employees at Nissan's Smyrna vehicle assembly plant see it as both a beginning and an end, the final frontier.

Plant manager and director Randy Knight started his career at Nissan the same year the Smyrna manufacturing plant opened in 1983. He helped build one of the first vehicles made there, a small pickup truck known simply as "Job One". That truck, which became the Nissan Frontier, is now moving with the Nissan Xterra to Nissan's Canton, Miss., vehicle assembly plant. Beginning this fall, to support aggressive growth and demand, Nissan will be running three shifts for the first time in the history of the Smyrna plant.

"The Frontier put the plant on the map. All the new products we are bringing in, the (Infiniti) JX, the new Pathfinder, the LEAF, the new Altima, the Maxima and the Rogue, are going to keep Smyrna on the map," said Susan Brennan, vice president, Smyrna manufacturing.

While workers are sad to see the Frontier move on, they are excited by the new growth and opportunity at Nissan. This growth is part of Nissan's plan to achieve eight percent market share, globally, by fiscal year 2016.

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