The landmark achievement by Nissan's Sunderland Plant came as the company posted its best ever full-year European sales, totaling 762,574 vehicles across Datsun and Nissan models. The sales result is an increase of 3.8% from 2016.

The Qashqai played a pivotal role in helping Nissan achieve these results as the model had another record-breaking year, with sales growing 1.2%. The Sunderland Plant produced a record 346,856 units of the urban crossover, 265,520 of which were sold in Europe.

Exceptional sales of the Qashqai helped Nissan achieve a 3.7% European market share, with Spain (9.4% sales growth), France (3% sales growth) and Russia (12.4% sales growth) representing the strongest markets.

The Qashqai is the most successful model in Europe in Nissan’s history, with the latest a major refresh of the second-generation model, launched in 2014. Altogether, the Nissan Qashqai has won more than 80 awards, including 19 “Car of the Year” titles.

Paul Willcox, chairman of Nissan Europe, said Nissan expects to see further records broken in 2018, with total industry sales in Europe and Russia rising about 2% to 20.2 million vehicles. Nissan expects the European market to grow 1% to 18.4 million vehicles and Russia’s to increase by 7% to 1.8 million.

In October 2016, Nissan announced that production of an all-new, third-generation Qashqai will also be at Sunderland.

The Sunderland Plant began production of the next-generation Nissan LEAF in December. It also makes the Juke crossover and the INFINITI Q30 and QX30 premium models.