Now...you wanted a funky car, which you could dress up as the Star Wars' Stormtrooper, and look cool in it, a car that could turn every head it passes by, a car that could attract attention from not just the chick, but also the uncle...here you have the Nissan Juke. Don't expect it to be available from our conservative Nissan's distributor Tan Chong...where you get only all the practical yet ugly cars like Almera and Livina. Some parallel importers are bringing the Juke in to fill the niche. Back in Japan, Nissan uses the Stormtroopers in its Juke's advertisement, as this car looks as if it were born from Star Wars!
Two powertrains are available to move the Juke, where the standard version get the Almera's familiar 1.5-litre engine which is capable of 99hp/139Nm of power. This model is popular in our neighbour country, the Indonesia! For those that want a Juke with power that make you feel like you are on a spaceship, the 1.6-litre Direct Injection Turbo engine is a must, and with 188hp/240Nm of juice, it sound like a GTi here! Just slot in a Star Wars music CD...could really make you feel like you are in outer-space...when you drive during the starry night...without any street lights! Who told you only European makes turbo engine? In fact, the same turbo engine this Juke uses is the one available in the Renault Clio RS...which has been tuned to provide a rocket 200 horsepower!
Interior of the Juke is as simple as a Nissan, and due to these units are JDM (Japan Direct Market) unit, most texts are in Japanese, which could be a deal breaker for those that hated to read Japanese. Push start button is standard in the Juke, and when press, both the rpm and speedo meters perform a full sweep...which is cool. The audio player is all in Japanese and could be quite useless in Malaysia, especially the FM frequency is limited from 76.0 to 90Mhz only! The only thing useful is the rear view camera here. Wonder if you change the audio unit, the rear view camera could be re-used or not? Setting of the car could be done from the tiny screen beside the aircon control. The read colour scheme on the meter cluster make it sportier, especially the red accent on the turbo model which get red splash of console and fabric!
Whatever model it is, the Juke uses Nissan's popular CVT, which seems to dominate most of their models now except for lower end cars. The turbo Juke get a Manual mode shifter, thus making the drive more interesting. But...a CVT is a turbocharged car? Nissan could do better using a standard torque converter gearbox or follow the Renault Clio RS footstep in having a dual clutch unit. So could the Juke be Nissan's inoovation that excites...you decide...I would want one if not for the costly unit of almost RM140k for a 3-year-old re-conditioned unit, or RM110k for a 4-year-old unit!
