Nissan Motorsport’s model range continues to grow, as does its importance as a profit centre for Nissan Motor. Glenn Brooks tries the division’s Juke NISMO.
Like the Qashqai before it, a seemingly strange name hasn’t done the Juke any harm, especially in Europe. While Nissan’s C segment crossover continues to sell up a storm even as it nears the end of its lifecycle (up 18 percent YoY in August), the smaller Juke also seems to just keep on achieving better sales results month in, month out.
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In its European region, which includes Russia, Nissan sold 37,725 vehicles in August, and retained its market share of 3.2 precent. Calendar year-to-date sales for the European region hit 414,406, as 13 European countries recorded their highest sales this quarter. The Qashqai is of course the brand’s lead model in Europe, with 14,836 sold in August, but the Juke seems to be ahead of just about all its rivals too, with 7,926 sold last month.
I haven’t seen the most recent numbers but sales of the Juke NISMO topped 3,700 units in Europe, Japan and the US between launch in January and the end of July, though US sales haven’t really had much time to take off yet as this vehicle is new for North America’s 2014 model year.
Here, this range topping derivative isn’t cheap, priced here at GBP20,395 in six-speed manual form or GBP22,600 if you prefer a CVT automatic, which comes with six closely matched ratios. Just shows you if you have a well engineered product that is in demand and has the right image, sometimes even a mass market name such as Nissan can command near-premium pricing levels.
NISMO has been around for many years but until recently, it was mostly restricted to Japan. Soon, you will be able to buy a March (our Micra) NISMO there, while the Fairlady Z (our Z NISMO or 370Z NISMO in the US) is already on sale. And the word is, a GT-R NISMO will be revealed at the Tokyo motor show in November.
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By GlobalDataThe company has promised at least one model every year during its Nissan Power88 period, “encompassing the breadth of the Nissan road car range”.
“The Nissan GT-R NISMO is the GT-R with which we pursue pure performance,” Hiroshi Tamura, Nissan GT-R and NISMO Chief Product Specialist, told the media earlier this year. “It is for people who search for true performance with pure motorsports flavour. Its development is on schedule, and I can’t wait to see the model introduced into the markets.”
The motorsport links include the World Endurance Championship, while in Japan NISMO has this season been chasing a third successive SUPER GT championship. The division also has a good profit centre in the form of engine supply deals to various Le Mans racing teams – at the 2013 event, 15 out of 22 LM P2 cars were powered by the NISMO-tuned Nissan VK45DE V8 engine, including the top five finishers. At next June’s Le Mans, NISMO will race the NISMO ZEOD RC (Zero Emission On Demand Race Car).
Clearly, NISMO is the real deal, not some tenuous link to a motorsport heritage based just on branding somebody else’s engines or Formula 1 team. People who buy the Juke NISMO would no doubt see right through something like that, plus the car itself has been greatly changed over the standard model.
The MR16DDT engine has had the control programme of the turbocharger tuned so this 1.6-litre four-cylinder unit produces 147kW or 200PS, a rise of 7kW. But that’s just the start. Torque is up by 10Nm to 250Nm, while on the manual versions, the ratios in the six-speed gearbox have been set up to provide strong acceleration – you can see that on the motorway, as at 80mph, the engine is running at a high-ish 3,200rpm – but fuel economy doesn’t appear to suffer as I saw an average of 32.7mpg.
The NISMO handles brilliantly and you just can’t believe that something which sits so high up will go round corners so flatly. It really feels like a hot hatch and it’s fast too. The lack of roll is helped by sports seats which grip your sides and they’re covered in grey suede, as are parts of the doors and the steering wheel. There’s no sunroof but what felt like soft alcantara is also used for the headliner.
There is a minor downside to the firm suspension and that’s a ride that feels quite different to that of the standard Juke. It won’t ever jolt you but you could never call it cushy – if you don’t like the Mini Countryman JCW, you won’t like the Juke NISMO either. But who doesn’t like a rapid Mini?
Sit in this top-spec model and you see quite a few changes over other Jukes. There’s a nismo badge behind the gearlever (yes, the official spelling is all in capitals but the badging is all lower case – I don’t understand either), metal pedals and a colour theme that I am going to call crimson. You’ll find this colour used for the tachometer, engine on/off button, stitching that surrounds the gear lever’s trim and on the outside, on the side skirts and bumpers as well as the mirrors cappings. To my eyes it all works as it’s not too much.
Yes this is a sports car but it’s also practical. You don’t lose any of the Juke’s interior roominess or spaces to stash all your stuff and there’s lots of headroom and a good sized boot. The whole interior package also still looks bang up to date despite that the basic model being more than three years old. The mid-cycle facelift will probably come next year but even by then I don’t think it will really need one.
We first saw the Juke in the form of the Nissan Qazana concept which premiered at the Geneva show in March 2009. The production model followed at the Geneva show one year later. The Juke took over from the Micra at Nissan’s UK plant, build starting there in August 2010 (Nissan Europe’s fourth generation Micra is sourced from India). At Sunderland, the Juke is built on Line 2, with the Nissan Leaf joining it on that line from early 2013.
As we know, production of the new to Europe Note was added at Sunderland last month, build of the second generation Qashqai is just months away and the Infiniti Q30 will be added from 2015. The future second generation Juke probably won’t enter production there until late 2017.
The Juke uses a lighter, re-engineered version of the third and fourth generation March/Micra platform, renamed ‘Renault-Nissan Alliance A’. The third generation Nissan Cube also uses this architecture. The Qazana concept’s 2,530mm wheelbase was identical to that of the Cube’s, as is the Juke’s. The production model is 4,135mm long, 1,765mm wide and 1,570mm high.
The car went on sale first in Japan back in June 2010. There, it is built at the Oppama plant on the same line as the Cube. With the exception of Indonesia, where assembly at Cikampek in West Java started in late 2011, Jukes for North America plus Japan and all other markets in Asia are manufactured at Oppama. It’s unusual that there is no production in China.
Nissan says the Juke NISMO was developed in Europe where, as we know, average driving speeds are faster, driving distances are longer and roads are more irregular (i.e., stone surfaces, rough terrain) than those found in Japan. That has to be great news for Nissan’s UK-based engineering operations – the centre at Cranfield has done a lot of the development work on next year’s second generation Qashqai/Dualis. How good would it be if a NISMO version of that model is also in the pipeline?
