We don’t know why but Nissan decided to give us an early glimpse of a mini van concept that will debut at the Tokyo Motor Show, due to open in October. Called NV200, the mini van concept was jointly developed by Nissan Design Center in Japan and Nissan Design Europe which is based in London. According to Nissan, the NV200’s most prominent feature is a storage pod which extends from the van’s load area when the vehicle is parked. As the pod is deployed, the now empty load bay is transformed into a mobile office. -Continued after the jump

Shiro Nakamura, senior vice president and chief creative officer at Nissan Motors said, “a light commercial vehicle has a specific job to perform, but that’s no reason to design a purely rational vehicle with no warmth. For NV200, function becomes the aesthetic. Our concept is a highly efficient tool but one with a human touch”.

Nissan says that although NV200 answers specific needs of a professional underwater photographer with ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ storage zones in the pod for diving and camera equipment, if the van went into production the basic concept could be tailored to suit different customers.