Way back in 2011, a bunch of engineers at Nissan got the brilliant idea of swapping the standard powertrain in the Juke mini-crossover out in favour of the same engine and gearbox from the legendary GT-R. The result was the original Juke-R, a 545bhp screaming ball of pure lunacy.
Somewhere along the line, though, those same engineers clearly decided that they hadn’t gone far enough and now, four years later, the Juke-R is back with even more power and even more craziness.
Based on the refreshed Juke that launched last year, it packs the same 3.8-litre V6 engine that comes in the eye-wateringly fast GT-R Nismo, with a total output of 600 horsepower. In a Juke.
Seeing is believing, so they say, but when it comes to something like this, seeing it just isn’t enough. To truly understand how deranged the Juke-R 2.0 is, it has to be experienced. So, last week Nissan flew myself and a pack of other journalists out to the French Alps to give it a go.
Megève Altiport, 4,280 feet above sea level and nestled against the face of an Alpine cliff, provides a suitably dramatic backdrop, and it’s just far enough removed from civilisation that Nissan’s latest wild beast can be truly let off its lead.
On first impressions, it’s a funny looking thing. It’s like Nissan’s Godzilla has been hit with a shrink-ray, and then beaten with the ugly stick until it resembles a Juke.
It gets a range of Nismo-inspired performance enhancements, like sculpted side skirts, a carbon fibre diffuser and a rear wing like the Juke Nismo, while the interior’s fitted with a massive roll cage, racing seats with a four-point harness and an Alcantara wheel.
Covered with structural tubes and bars inside, it’s the sort of car that you have to be strapped into rather than being able to buckle yourself inside, which should say it all, really. A quick safety briefing from Nissan’s technicians follows (‘Don’t be an idiot, you may die’), before hitting the ignition switch and stirring it into life.
It’s easy to look at a specification sheet and see all the little numbers and figures, before ponderously scratching your chin and hmm’ing and ha’ing to yourself in mock understanding. But while you might think you have a pretty good idea of just how powerful something like the Juke-R 2.0 is, nothing can prepare you for actually driving it.
The raw speed is genuinely, physically disorienting. In the time it takes you to say, “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Missi-” you’re tearing up the runway at nearly 100mph, while your brain’s still a quarter mile behind you on the starting line, ejected from the back of your head like a Wile E. Coyote skit.
Straight-line speed is so stupendously fast that it’s almost comical; you can’t help but chuckle as a mixture of nervous laughter and sheer disbelief overtakes you while the Juke relentlessly hurtles toward lightspeed.
Thanks to the four-wheel drive, you’re not just being pushed, but also pulled at the same time under full acceleration. It lightens the head and lifts the stomach. Colours start to blur. It’s a narcotic effect. A body high; a not-quite-dizziness.
The strange thing is that the Juke-R 2.0 doesn’t feel like a Juke, nor does it feel like a GT-R. In fact, it hardly even feels like a car at all, more like some sort of four-wheeled Howitzer that you point in the direction you want it to fire, and then blast off like a 600bhp heat-seeking missile.
Reach 7,000rpm, pull the right paddle to shift up and there’s not even a split second of hesitation as it engages the second gear and catapults itself towards the horizon.
Its relatively tiny wheelbase means that it is prone to understeer if you don’t know what you’re doing, but lift off the throttle and the all-wheel drive system and wider-than-wide tyres suck you round the apex of the corners before spitting you out the other end with another dose of insane acceleration.
If the power alone isn’t enough to frighten you, then the sounds that this thing makes surely will. Nissan assured us that it runs on regular old unleaded and not the tortured souls of the damned, but the V6’s scream would convince you that it’s a serious possibility.
Shift down and the engine burbles, snarls and spits like a miniature shotgun mounted on the rear while there’s a punchy metallic snicker at idle; the soundtrack is every bit as raw as its on-road demeanour and just as intoxicating.
During our test runs, not all the sounds were good, though. After a few laps of the ad hoc racetrack, brakes and tyres started to squeal a bit. For all its power, you get the feeling that the Juke-R 2.0 is in fact very fragile, and Nissan’s technicians had to stop it every couple of laps to inspect what was going on under the bonnet.
This is a car that just should not be, and it seems as though it knows it. Like the bastard creation of a mad scientist that perishes shortly after birth, this Frankenstein’s monster feels as though its parts are threatening to shake themselves to death with every blast around the runway.
Maybe all that power in such a small housing is unsustainable, maybe Nissan’s playing God is an example of science gone too far, or maybe this puffed-up crossover is simply deep in the throes of ‘roid rage.
Startling. Disorienting. Troubling. All words which come to mind when driving the Juke-R 2.0. Intimidating? Maybe. Intoxicating? Absolutely.
One thing’s for sure, this Juke is a hell of a drug.
