Nissan for You: Covering all Bases for all People

Is there a Nissan for you? It doesn’t matter if you love performance cars or SUV convertibles, it seems Nissan is building a car for everyone. And I applaud them for that.

In 2007 Nissan shocked the world and came out with “Godzilla”, their berserk all wheel drive high tech super car the GT-R. The GT-R quickly proved that it could eat Ferraris, Lamborghinis and essentially every other expensive sports car for breakfast. It cost under $100,000. To give you an example of just how quick this car is, the GT-R went as fast around Top Gear’s test track at the hands of the Stig as a Ferrari 430 Scuderia. When they tested the 2012 model it beat a Bugatti Veyron and Ferrari Enzo, both super cars with price tags of at least 5 times the price. Nissan has some other standouts in its current lineup as well.

Image via Wikipedia

Cue the Nissan Juke. The Nissan Juke was already a pretty unique car when it debuted in 2010. It is a “sport compact crossover” aimed at a more masculine demographic, so Nissan made it fun to drive and endowed it with decidedly funky styling. Since it debuted it has enjoyed a cult-like status with an owners club, forums and plenty of positive feedback from testers. Tester Nate Martinez describes the crossover’s aura: “I can’t get into a Juke (long termer or not) without wanting to ring-out the four-banger to its 6600 rpm redline. Then I have to push it aggressively into a bend as if my last name were Vettel” (Source: Motortrend). Do you want a crazy and mad SUV? This is the Nissan for you.

For those of you concerned that the Juke is a bit too pedestrian, Nissan decided to stuff it 480 horsepower engine and powertrain from their aforementioned GT-R into the Juke. For fun. The result: The Juke-R. The Juke-R will most likely never see the light of day for a normal consumer, but having the balls to stuff your supercar’s insides into a $20,000 small crossover is something most manufacturers aren’t willing to do in the name of sheer experimentation.

So imagine you see this black monster one day as you’re driving your nice Beamer, Porsche or Mercedes. Unless you have an uber-performance model you’ll be choking on the Juke-R’s dust, because this thing hits 60 miles an hour in 3.7 seconds. And it’s all because Nissan is absolutely crazy.

Image via Wikipedia

But lunacy comes in different flavors, and Nissan decided to create a new market previously unexplored by any major auto manufacturer. A luxury SUV cabrio. That’s right, Nissan decided to chop the roof off their Murano SUV. The result: the Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet. No, I’m not joking. You can read more about it here. So if you love sitting up high in your luxury SUV but feel that windows and a sunroof aren’t enough for open air, don’t worry. Nissan is one of the only auto manufacturers willing to give you 93 million miles of headroom. This is the Nissan for you ultra-trendy suburbanites. Cause your neighbors shock and awe.

We’ll have to see if Nissan’s executives will continue on their path of controlled recklessness going into 2012 and beyond, but the answer is most likely a yes. Nissan wrote a press release saying that there will be, “20 new or redesigned products Nissan plans to introduce in this market within the next two years” (Source: PRNewsWire.com).

And this is good news for all of us. Next I’d like a van convertible with over 500 horsepower that’s able to seat ten people. And a compact car that at a press of a giant red button can be turned into a helicopter. Or a boat. Let’s hope Nissan’s engineers and bosses continues drinking whatever it is they’ve been drinking  so we can continue to enjoy the results of one of very few car companies that’s willing to stand out from the crowd.

Is there still not a Nissan for you? Don’t worry, it’s coming.