Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2010 | Page 74

motoring

Island Life - October/November 2010

The Juke, Nissan’s smooth-torqueing crossover
WORDS: ROZ WHISTANCE PICTURES: MARTIN POTTER
It is Nissan’s answer to life, the
environment, everything. The Juke is a
crossover – a scaled-down off-roader
for the road – but if this suggests
compromise, which it surely does,
why is it that the word that comes
to mind when you drive the Juke is
uncompromising?
Its publicity likes to pump up
its muscles, to stress its urban
cred. Certainly its funky looks are
attention-grabbing when you’re sitting
in the rush hour traffic out of Ryde.
Like a Micra on steroids its large curvy
wheel arches, go-get-‘em grid and
halogens, and ski-jump rear say urban
style. It even poses as a two-door, its
rear door handles concealed like a
clever afterthought.
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But show it something narrow, rural
and steep, and if anything it feels even
more at home. It bounds over bumps
and holes and clings to the tightest of
corners: even the 2-wheel drive Acenta
model we tested had the authority of a
4-wheeler. Those strongly-drawn urban
lines and prominent headlights define
the edges well for squeezing into
gaps. And when you need to reverse
to the nearest passing place just
check out the colour camera that
pops up on the display – so wickedly
accurate you’re tempted to skim
within centimetres an onlooker’s
gate.
This car gives you options. There
is – like the Honda CRZ tested on
these pages – a series of buttons

which will alter, even in motion, the
nature of the drive from Economy,
Normal through to Sport. Each mode
feeds y ou with information about
what’s happening to the car – your fuel
consumption at one extreme and your
torque as you rev away at the other.
Curiously Juke’s publicity downplays its

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