Hey, let’s talk about something that seems a little ridiculous, but has been in the making for quite some time now, and has actually made it to fruition. This monumental triumph of ridiculousness was achieved by the design team that hails from Nissan. The vehicle that is going to be discussed today is the Nissan Juke R.
For those of you who don’t know about it, the Nissan Juke R was a project that was conceptualized at the tail end of 2010, and then was moved forward in 2011. The basic idea of the Juke R was to see if it was possible to put all of the good stuff that resides in the Nissan GTR, and then find a way to put it into a Nissan Juke. The phrase, “Ten pounds of sh*t in a five pound bag” comes to mind doesn’t it? Funny as the term goes, the Juke R is at all not a joke.
As we know, the standard Nissan Juke comes with a 1.4L four cylinder petrol engine that makes a modest 140Kw of power, and 239Nm of torque. This is then mated to a Continuous Variable Transmission that is similar to the one’s that are in the Altima, and Rogue, and pricing for the Juke starts at around $18,959 dollars. So there you have this compact cross-over looking vehicle that some say look like a squatting bullfrog, depending on the color.
So then steps in the team from NISMO, and they then decided play Operation with a Juke & a GTR in the same garage for a few months, and what they came up with is a Frankenstein-ish creation that has all of the best pieces of the GTR, but is still the same size of the Juke. After months of cutting, stretching, remolding, and squeezing, the Juke R was created and was looking for a fight. The brand new Juke R now has 361Kw of power, and 588Nm of road gripping torque. Also the CVT was upgraded to the one that came out of the GTR, along with all of the same AWD prowess, the Juke R was poised to go from 0 to 100kmph in a mere 3.7 seconds. So now the Bullfrog was not only in a class of it’s own, but the fastest thing in it.
Official testing on the Juke R took place to crunch more numbers, but its fame was had when Nissan took the Juke R to Dubai for some impromptu runs around their multi million dollar race course. The real fun began when the Juke R was pitted against some high end, big powered cars. It was involved in a street race where it beat a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, and a Mercedes Benz. The Juke R’s AWD capabilities allowed a solid win on the constantly changing street surface. Once the video leaked, it was a YouTube hit receiving over 500,000 views.
Now, officially the Juke R was only supposed to be a one time project car to prove a point, but apparently while in Dubai a very wealthy Sheikh took notice of the Juke R, and immediately requested that one be built for him. With that in mind, the Juke R has now become a “Made to Order” type vehicle now, and runs the price of $600,000USD or about $575,000AUD. Crazy isn’t it?
I mean just because you get a plethora of GTR electronics, like stability control, launch control, various driving modes, a six speed paddle shifter, extremely bolstered front seats, that are wrapped in cloth, & leather. Juke R Aluminum trim pieces, a lightened exhaust that pokes out of the rear via a dual tipped, center mounted location. A wide body kit consisting of stretched, and pulled wheel arches, front and rear lower fascias, a rear deck, split roof spoiler, and topping if it all off, are the 20” Matte Black wheels. I mean it doesn’t sound like much, but what would be the cost of seeing the face of a guy who just lost a race while driving his Gallardo. Priceless.
