Nissan’s joke with Juke
Under - Design, Industrial DesignYahoo Cars today published an article on ‘Top five cars coming in 2010’ on display at the Geneva Motor Show which is up till 14th March.
At first sight I couldn’t believe that Nissan could do something like this! I’m talking about the thing called Juke. After the elegantly done Qashqai, that I truly admire and driven myself, how come Nissan could venture into something so controversial looking. Seriously, just look at it.
Heavily inspired by their ‘Qazana’ concept car, about which autoblog.com says ‘Nissan Qazana is so bizarre it almost looks French’, Juke has a ‘heavy dose of sportiness’. Although designed and built in Sunderland (UK) like Qashqai, Juke is a very Japanese car design to me than anything else. Technology apart, automobile design is something where only few specialize in. If Nissan is trying to repeat the Qashqai phenomenon here then I don’t think things would be exactly the same with this model – Qashqai was bold and Juke is awkwardly bold.
Nissan Qazana Concept Car - compare this to the above Juke
I personally like the ‘bizarre’ Qazana design, the problems that I can pick are mostly around the consumer version where front part is very badly adopted. The multiple front lights, out of which two are protruding, and their overall composition making it impossible to focus on Juke’s ‘face’ hence the overall design losing its impact. Despite the exaggerated masculine body the overall look-n-feel is very subtle compare to Qazana’s sculpted body. Every time I look at Juke I think of this.
A concept lost in the making - Qazana/Juke Comparison
Qazana/Juke Comparison - another view
Qazana’s overall design has been downgraded into Juke making it a weirdly looking car from a distinctive one (ok, being weird is sort of distinctive). The above pictures show how the Qazana ‘concept’ is lost in the making. Those two protruding lights and their proportionate relation with the other two front lights is missing in Juke along with overall slick, smart yet masculine and sporty shape characteristics. I’m not going into every minute detail to illustrate how much is lost but Juke is like a novice repainting a master piece.
Automobile, car design, concept car, Crossover, Geneva Motor Show, Industrial Design, Mechanical engineering, Nissan, Nissan Motors, Nissan Qashqai, Qazana, Road transport, Sunderland, United Kingdom 
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8 thoughts to “Nissan’s joke with Juke”
Car Centre
Nice post about nissan juke. I think I like the design much. It reminds me with frog 😛
enter here
I get the feeling you really aren’t a car person. You complain about the differences between the production Juke and the concept car but some degree of change is inevitable. Everyone accepts it as a basic law of automotive evolution. Even so the Juke carries over much more of it’s concept car roots than is typical in the automotive industry. Tell me, now that the initial shock has worn off, do you still think it so radical?
Asif Naqvi
Unfortunately, I still have the same point of view on this. There’s always a degree of change from concept to production and no denial about it however the “degree” of “conceptual degradation”, cosmetic or functional, is a separate matter. If you see Qashqai concept and production you would notice that the design essence is carried over to the consumer version but with Juke, I don’t feel the same.
Perhaps, it is because the Juke was designed (concept) as a sporty compact SUV and the approach is applied to a small hatchback car range!
Ryan
Concepts are more about design, might not really work in real life, seeing from usage or production points. If they can copy the concept 100% and sell that I think they will. Meaning they couldn’t.
Jon Boddy
The main question is:Why? Why did someone feel the need to sign off something as ugly as this?With extra shifts being brought in at Suncerland to cope with the deserved success of the Qashqai why did this grotesque monstrosity ever see the light of day?It looks like a pig on castors from some angles,which would be semi-foregiveable if the car itself was of class-leading talent,but after having read reports of a hard ride,poor rearward visibility and poor rear seat access,and having seen one close up,it beggars belief that it exists.Please,Nissan,can this one soon.You have the afore-mentioned Qashqai,the Note,and the new Micra,etc to be going on with,so please think again.
amanda
great design, look like this amphibi cars for aliens
John
This has got to be one of the ugliest cars since the Pontiac Asstic!
James
It appears that Nissan has misspelled “Joke”!!!
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