With less than two years on its back, Nissan’s second generation Qashqai that was unveiled in November of 2013 before going on sale in early 2014, isn’t due for a facelift for another couple of years.

This raises the question of what is Nissan doing with the lightly camouflaged Qashqai we caught testing in Europe. The only part of the SUV that’s veiled is the lower part of the front bumper, which looks like it may have a different design than on the current European model.

If it’s not an early development prototype for a future facelift, then we think it could be either a special edition model or a tester for the rumored North American-market Qashqai, a story that broke just this week by Autonews.

According to the report, sources familiar with Nissan’s product plans revealed that the European Qashqai will come to the States to enhance the brand’s SUV line-up as a slightly smaller and more frugal version of the related Rogue, which is 10 inches longer overall and rides on a 2-inch elongated wheelbase compared to the Qashqai .

Photo Credits: CarPix for CarScoops

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