Recently I was invited to test drive the all new Nissan Juke. One Friday morning I along with the wife headed down to South Beach. We met the New Juke along with Nissan's Marketing and Product team. Before I go any further let me say that the Juke will never ever be confused with any other car on the road. Nissan does a real good job on distinctive styling that doesn't scare away the public. By taking cues from the GT-R and 370Z, they have made it very appealing. The Juke is an eye catching little cross over or "Sport Cross" . It has a direct-injected 4 cylinder engine that's turbo-charged packing 188 horses and 177 ft/lbs of torque. The interior is roomy for a big guy like me, but I wouldn't spend too much time in the back seats. Fuel economy is great around 30 miles per gallon and with that kind of power under your right foot, that's always a good quality to have. The Rockford Fosgate audio system is top notch and the nav system will make sure you don't get lost.
We all met at the trendy Yuca Cuban restaraunt and once the other bloggers arrived we were told that we woould be going on a scavenger hunt through out Miami. There were 3 Jukes of different trim levels. After a brief walk through, we were given the keys and our first clue. I got the black one which is my favorite color. The car I was in had a 6 speed manual gearbox, the other 2 had the CVT gearbox. Once my wife was in, we were off to Uncle Sam's Music Cafe on Washington ave. We were given $40.00 in gift certificates to buy cruising music. I got Michael Jackson Number Ones (you can't go wrong with the King of Pop).
Once we got our second clue we were off like a shot. We had to go to the American Airlines Arena and take pics by the triple "A" sculpture. The driving position was perfect. Not too high that you needed a ladder to get in and not too low that you feel that your butt is centimeters off the ground. I noticed no turbo lag whatsoever and this thing is very quick. As we cruised along the causeway we had no problems weaving through traffic. We pulled up to the triple "A" sculpture grabbed some quick snapshots and our next clue and we were off.
We took some of the backstreets to the next destination. I wanted to see how well the Juke handled not so perfect roads. Let me say it soaked up all of the bumps, cracks, potholes and railroad tracks like a champ. Our third photo-op was some of Miami's beautiful graffiti in the design district. After fielding questions of what we thought, we were given our final clue. The last place was Kennedy Park in Coconut Grove. I was really excited about this because it meant that we had to get on I-95. This would give me the chance to stretch the Juke's legs and see what she's really got. Needless to say that the Juke did not disappoint. As I climbed through the gears there always seemed to be power galore. The engine was smooth and not buzzy. Once we arrived at the park we set off for our final photo-op. When that was all over we headed back to Yuca for lunch. All in all we had a great time in the Juke and I'm sure that this will be Nissan's next big hit. Oh, did I mention that for a price of around $19,000, it's extremely affordable too.
Disclosure: During this event, Nissan provided each car with $40 in gift cards for Uncle Sam’s music, various snacks and drinks throughout the hunt, an upscale lunch at Yuca Restaurant, and a new Flip Video Camera, valued at about $200. These items did not influence my opinion of their product in any way.
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