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VANCOUVER – The theory persists that American car buyers, especially young ones, like weird, quirky, and often ugly, vehicles.
Despite General Motors Co.’s embarrassment with the Pontiac Aztek, and Honda Motor Co. Ltd.’s slow-selling Honda Accord Crosstour and Acura ZDX, Nissan North America Inc. releases the Juke in October.
The last thing the industry needs is another blandmobile. But the Juke cross/utility vehicle, the U.S.’s only wagon-type B-segment CUV, doesn’t push the design needle in the right direction.
With its oddly proportioned grille, its round, low-positioned headlamps that look like ginormous bug eyes, and its high-mounted turn indicators protruding like larva on the underside of a picnic table, the Juke’s face is one only a chief designer could love. Thinking outside the box can go too far.
That’s a shame because the rest of the Juke is great, barring some minor annoyances.
The all-new fuel-sipping-yet-powerful 188-hp 1.6L 4-cyl., making 177 lb.-ft. (240 Nm) of torque, is first-rate.
With gasoline direct injection – using two injectors per cylinder instead of one – and a single-scroll turbocharger, not to mention an optional continuously variable transmission, lots of racket emanating from under the Juke’s hood might be expected.
But Nissan engineers have done a good job quieting any clatter or whine. Only when pushing the CUV to its limits climbing hills here, or under hard acceleration in Eco mode, does the 1.6L groan.
