The Nissan Juke comes in a variety of setups and makes an interesting choice for some maximum horsepower. On one end of the spectrum the Juke is a good looking small hatchback that is built as a city dweller for the younger crowd that doesn’t have a lot to spend on a vehicle. At the other end, the Juke can be set up to be a mean beast of the track and take on some of the sports cars we see prowling the streets and leave them looking at the taillights wondering how in the world this car went so fast.
The secret to this success is actually pretty simple, Nissan is trying to stuff the GT-R platform into anything it can and add the R to the end of the tittle. Actually, they have been doing this for a while, but the differences between the old Juke-R and the new one are astonishing to say the least. For 2015 the new Juke-R gained new headlights and mirrors along with a few other bennies to give it a full-fledged facelift, but the real improvements were in the power and weight areas which brought the new Juke-R to an even more powerful life than before.
The previous powertrain on this awesome little hatchback showed up at 485 horsepower. This was still a driveline borrowed from the GT-R and benefited from the full time AWD that was aboard. As amazing as this powertrain was, it’s now yesterday’s news as we now have a new Juke-R that is meaner, lighter, and much more powerful to deliver the speed and acceleration we could only hope to have in this hatchback.
This new powertrain is the same 3.8-liter twin-turbocharged V6 engine that pumps out 600 horsepower for the GT-R. That’s right; 600 big ones, a huge 115 horsepower increase over the previous model making this one of the fastest and most powerful hatchbacks ever. Other changes, which have improved the suspension, chassis, and overall weight of the car include the use of a lot of carbon fiber for the body panels which give the car a much lighter weight and the ability to be stronger while moving even faster. The only thing that seems to be missing from this new Juke-R is a flame coming out of the exhaust pipes, but somehow I’m sure that could be accomplished as well.
Currently there is no word as to whether or not we can actually purchase this new Juke-R. It hasn’t been released to the public yet and can only be admired during testing and showing off as it quickly smokes some of the high powered sports cars that come to play at the track. Hopefully we will get the chance to see some of these in the hands of car shoppers who are looking for the next great hot hatch, but for now Nissan may just feel this is too much power to have in any one driveway.
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