Nissan to deliver Juke-R baby

Nissan has done what many thought was unthinkable and announced it will be building the outrageous Micra-based, GT-R powered Juke-R crossover in limited numbers.

Very limited, in fact, with the company at present responding to orders for just three cars, two of which come from a “high profile and well respected member of Dubai society.”

The company is not saying how many Juke-Rs it will actually build, except to state that it will be taking more orders in the coming weeks before “production starts in earnest.”

According to Gareth Dunsmore, who is the marketing and product manager for Juke, “The Juke-R was originally intended as a one-off concept to marry two of Nissan’s most innovative models. But the reaction we had to the car in Dubai was amazing. We decided we had to make the car a reality.”

In production form the 406kW 3.8-litre twin-turbo V6 powered Micra-based car benefits from the adoption of MY12 GT-R running gear rather than the MY10 equipment underpinning the original concept.

First-drive reports on the monster baby crossover mentioned impressive and not so impressive points: The concept car was a fair bit more civilised than expected, a bit less impressive on the road than the GT-R on which it is based, and a bit squeezy inside, where driver and passenger have to battle with numerous intrusions including a massive roll cage, a battery located in the passenger’s footwell and a bootful of air-conditioning.

Driving one of the two pilot Juke-Rs at the Dubai Autodrome in the UAE during January this year, motoring.com.au journalist Gautam Sharma found the mini monster about two thirds of the way between a GT-R and a Nissan 370Z on the track.

“What stands out about the car is how easy it is to pedal at pace. (Test and development driver Michael Mallock) says his team set the Juke R up ‘so that even your grandmother can drive it’, and that’s no exaggeration. It really is a doddle.”

The GT-R’s electronic drivetrain control systems automatically compensate for the Juke’s shorter wheelbase, as attested to in a quote from Mallock when discussing the setting-up of the essentially GT-R based Juke-R in the US publication Popular Mechanics: "(The electronics system) did notice that something was different, but then it recalibrated itself all on its own. Don’t tell it, because I don’t think it realises that it’s in a different car.”

Nissan has also launched an online movie  “Desert Nemesis”, featuring the Juke-R to coincide with the announcement. In the movie, which was directed by award winning director Rob Kaplan, Nissan’s inaugural 2008 GT Academy winner Lucas Ordonez drives a Juke-R in a street race through the roads of Dubai’s International Marina Club.

The first three Juke-Rs will be delivered to their owners in the third quarter of the year. Nissan suggests potential buyers should contact Juke-R@Nissan.co.uk.

As for the regular Nissan Juke, it is not on the Australian radar for the moment but, according to the general manager for PR Jeff Fisher, the company is keeping an eye on it with a view to it possibly making sense in the future. The same rationale could be expected to apply to the Juke-R.