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The Nissan Juke-R is Wonderfully Insane

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Nissan Juke-R Prototype

Nissan Juke-R Prototype
Photo: David V. Fernandez via Flickr

To most, the Nissan Juke is a rather ugly little SUV that offers barely 200 horsepower at most out of the factory. To make it a bit more exciting, engineers at Nissan Europe got the unique opportunity to find out what it would be like to combine a Nissan GT-R and a Nissan Juke.

Shown at the 2012 Paris Motor Show, the Juke-R packed a 545 horsepower engine out of the Nissan GT-R as well as the running gear out of the supercar. They had to take out the rear seats, move the firewall back, and rip out the headliner to get the GT-R bits to fit properly, but the Juke-R shares the same wheelbase, height, and length as the original.

The short wheelbase and high center of gravity make this thing a bit of a jumpy deathtrap when you get it up to speed, but that’s part of the thrill. Nissan built the Juke-R to be hilariously fun to drive, not to be fast at the track.

They let journalists drive the prototype in 2012, and Car and Driver called Nissan’s 3.7 second 0-60 estimate for the vehicle “pessimistic”. Watch Auto Express put it up against the GT-R in this video:

Nissan only produced 21 of these insane little hot rods, but just last year a Russian company boosted one up to 800 horsepower (because 545 isn’t enough) and lapped the notorious Nurburgring in Germany. They even modified it to be switched from all-wheel drive to rear-wheel drive. How they kept it on the track is nothing short of a miracle.

We wish automakers let their engineers mess around a little more, as Nissan did with the Juke-R. What Frankenstein car would you like to see in the future?

 

Nissan Juke Gallery

Nissan GT-R Gallery