Nissan has always produced highly modifiable cars, intentional or not their cars have been hugely popular with drifters and street races, once duly modified. Now Nissan has beaten everyone to the punch and produced what they describe as the world’s fastest cross-over, the Juke-R is actually the world’s most extreme hot hatch.

The Juke was released in 2010, with its unusual looks and very useable interior it won a lot of friends. Being a cross-over it combines the qualities of an sports off-roader with the size and shape of a hatchback. While the plain vanilla Juke may be an interesting curio Nissan has constructed something very special with its Juke-R. Wanting to prove the point Nissan has even released a video of the Juke-R racing three other super-cars. – see below -.

Dressed in black carbon fibre the Juke-R is the standard Jukes evil twin. A smoking hot hatch in the greatest tradition of mental cars. This is no ordinary hot hatchback mind you, with a Nissan GT-R’s engine, transmission and four wheel drive somehow shoe horned into the Jukes body. Part Juke part Godzilla, this is the Jukezilla.

 

Designed from the outset to catch people’s attention this is a car that is dialed all the way up to 11. But the Juke-R is only part of Nissan’s master plan, a tool for their publicity machine. Nissan has very ambitious plans for the next 18 months, planning to release a new model every six weeks the publicity machine is going to stay at full speed for that whole period.

The Video

With the pace car duties for the ‘Dunlop 24 Hours of Dubai endurance race’ out of the way a number of lucky journalists were given the opportunity to test drive the beast. All testing was done at the Dubai Autodrome. Even the Top Gear monkey men were given a little time with the Juke. By all accounts she drives well with only slight understeers and has much better stability than might be expected of a car this tall. Not only was it quick but it took this punishment all day then went on to have some Juke-R fun.

Nissan also took the opportunity to put a video together demonstrating the Juke-Rs raw performance, a race had been organized. With the ominous black outline ready on the start line the race was on. The Juke’s competition were three of the fastest supercars available, a Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4, a Ferrari 458 Italia, and a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG. While the short sharp car park course layout may have favoured the Juke-R there can be no disputing that it is one quick little automobile.

JUKE-R Street Race in Dubai

The Juke-R

There are only 2 Juke-R’s in existence one left hand drive and one right. Both constructed by British motor sports company RML Group, for Nissan Europe.

There is little chance of this version of the Juke going into production, the fact that the firewall needed to be moved 10cm back to fit Godzilla’s engine in would seem to confirm this. The rear seats having to be removed and installation of a roll cage would confirm the fact that this is a special edition car. Not to say that there won’t ever be a Juke-R put into production, this is a possibility but expect it to be mechanically much closer to the standard Juke than to a GT-R.

The final product produces about 485 hp and 434 lb-ft of torque from its twin-turbo 3.8-liter V-6 engine. The Juke-R also inherits Godzilla’s suspension, intelligent four wheel drive and 380mm vented disk brakes.

While the Juke-R is nearly a foot shorter than it’s big brother, Godzilla, after the installation of a roll cage and other modifications the Juke-R actually ends up being 76Kg heavier and just a smidgen slower. The extra weight can also be attributed to the Motorsport Association spec roll cage and reinforced floor pan. While the Juke-R takes 3.7 seconds to 100km/h Godzilla can beat that by 7 tenths of a second. Nissan is also claiming a top speed of 160 mph / 260 kph.

Nissan JUKE-R

2012 GT-R

The other half of Nissan’s wonder twins, the Nissan GT-R aka Godzilla is the basis for many of the Juke-R’s performance parts, a donor car.. In its recently released 2012 guise this is an extremely impressive technology tour de force on four wheels.

After its release earlier this year the 2012 Nissan’s R35 GT-R has impressed all who have watched it torture reviewers with its high g antics. With a quoted 0-100kp/h of 3 seconds the GT-R just keeps getting quicker. Horsepower is up to 530hp at 6,400rpm backed up with 612Nm of torque. Aerodynamic refinements from bumpers to the underside have improved down force along with acceleration. In-spite of the high output the engine still meets the most stringent emissions and efficiency standards,

Cleverly Nissan’s engineers increased the engine temperatures to 1100 degrees Celsius in order to burn the fuel more completely. Chassis and suspension changes have improved handling, especial in R Mode, while Nissan has also softened the comfort mode for those cruiser journeys. Various tuning companies have released higher performance version of the R35, 800 horsepower plus seems to be standard, allowing for 0-100km/h times under 2.2 seconds. A cheap super sports car or expensive street racer car either way the new Godzilla is a whole lot of car for the money, $90,000 USD fully spec’d out.

Standard out of the box the is an outstanding engineering achievement but what happens if the tweakers get their hands on it. Try 850 bhp and, 2.2 seconds to 100Kph, this is a Veyron Killer dressed in Nike shoes and tracksuit pants. How about 330Kph in under 20 seconds, watch the video below for the evidence.

While Godzilla has long had a reputation as a car for the PlayStation generation, with the drivers able to adjust and tweak every aspect of the car from a touch screen on the dash this is an unfair reputation. Tweakers in a game don’t have any risk, no real world risk anyway. Owners of extreme Nissan GT-R’s know exactly the risks they are taking ,it’s calculated and pre-planned but still more than a little crazy.