Always liked the idea of owning a small, slightly odd-looking SUV with the powertrain and running gear out of a fully blown high-performance sports car in it? Well, you could have had a Nissan Juke-R, but they only made 21 of those, so you are most likely way too late.
But, wait — Nissan recently revealed the Juke-R 2.0 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, so you have another chance to fulfil your really very weird dreams!
But here’s the thing with that: Nissan recently announced that they would be building the Juke-R 2.0, but only building a maximum of 17.
So you had better be quick.
Or not. Because that is a maximum of 17 and Nissan will basically build as many as they can sell.
Why would they have a problem selling something that is simultaneously more than a little bizarre and utterly awesome, you may well ask. Simple, really — the last Juke-R had an asking price of a rather staggering US$650,000 ($983,730) and the 2.0 certainly won’t be any cheaper ...
Still, what price would you place on individuality? Although, you could just buy a Nissan Patrol and be fairly unique still ...
We are the world
■Police in North Yorkshire, UK, were left slightly bewildered — first by the passenger and then by the driver’s excuse — when they stopped a Peugeot 206 with two bald tyres. After pulling the Peugeot over, the officers noticed a sheep in the back of the car. That’s right, a sheep. Things were made even odder by the driver’s reason for having a sheep in his car — he was taking the sheep to McDonald’s for a treat. He didn’t have an excuse for the bald tyres however, and was issued a ticket for them.
■A man in South Africa has been reunited with his car 22 years after it was stolen, thanks to a particularly determined police officer. Derick Goosen was surprised to get a call two weeks ago from officer Kwakwa Ntokola, about a grey 1988 Toyota Corolla he reported stolen back in 1993. It seems the car turned up last year when police seized a vehicle at a checkpoint after noticing that its engine number had been scratched off. A very determined Ntokola somehow managed to reconstruct the number and eventually traced the owner. Goosen apparently plans to wash the car and “drive around in it”.
Box trims everything back to essentials
Entertain in it, or just park your vehicle in it — the choice is yours with this minimalist Italian GazeBox garage.
Minimalism. It used to be a thing that only Volvo and pretentious men with silly beards rather enjoyed, but it has now become an unsettling trend in the lives of the bearded and the beardless alike.
The Good Oil is sure this will please Volvo, but it really isn’t our thing. We like our stuff and the idea of getting rid of our complete collection of the original 1966 Batman TV series or our cheap knockoff watches that don’t work fills us with horror.
But even we have to admit that this new minimalist garage from Italian outfit GazeBox is actually pretty cool. And quite weird. But that’s probably why we like it ...
The GazeBox can do duty as a garage, a carport and a gazebo, depending on your needs/mood and it can be ordered in lengths between 5.6m and 7.1m, and comes complete with a remote control to open and close it, as well as control the LED lighting system.
If admiring your car inside what appears to be a giant metal and polycarbonate snail isn’t your thing, the GazeBox can be ordered in carbon, wood, aluminium or stone-effect.
Which would just make it even odder, really.
Tacky, but all class
The press release that arrived along with the announcement of the new Rolls-Royce Wraith displayed a funky sense of humour.
You will have read on our very own www.driven.co.nz website about the latest in appallingly tasteless Rolls-Royce special editions — The Wraith “Inspired by Music”.
With lots of horrid gold interior trim, sparkly metallic brown paintwork and “the most exhaustively designed sound system in automotive history” (according to the folk at Rolls, anyway), the “Inspired by Music” is exactly the right blend of tacky and impressive that the huge Rolls coupe should be. The Good Oil is both horrifyingly offended and undeniably attracted to it at the same time.
What the story on the Driven website didn’t tell you, however, was the press release that accompanied the release of the new Wraith was an even bigger work of art, displaying a sly sense of humour that The Good Oil didn’t think still existed under the brand’s current German ownership.
Rather brilliantly, it recalls stories about two famous rock and roll Rollers — John Lennon’s psychedelic 1965 Phantom V and Keith Moon’s infamous “swimming pool incident”.
While Lennon always enjoyed recounting the time a woman who clearly didn’t approve of the custom artwork he commissioned on the exterior of his Rolls chased him down the road shouting “You swine! You swine! How dare you do that to a Rolls-Royce!”, it is the tale of The Who drummer’s Rolls ownership that is the most amusing. As the release goes:
“One particular story resulting from the music world’s love affair with Rolls-Royce has segued from folklore to infamy. It concerns The Who drummer, Keith Moon and the night of his 21st birthday at the Holiday Inn in Flint, Michigan. Legend goes that a somewhat high spirited Mr Moon drove his Rolls-Royce into the hotel’s swimming pool. This is categorically untrue and is probably an overblown conflation of two stories.
“The first, involves a regrettable yet entirely understandable lapse of concentration, with Mr Moon failing to fully secure his Rolls-Royce’s handbrake. Unfortunately he had parked on a slope leading to a half-constructed swimming pool. The car made a characteristically graceful descent down the hill before coming to rest at the bottom of the unfilled pool.
“The second is a little closer to the legend. On purchasing a new American car he tried to charge it to the band’s account. Naturally they refused to indulge his request. Mr Moon expressed his displeasure by parking the car in an ornamental pond before telephoning the dealer to take it away. Not something he would ever have done to his beloved Rolls-Royce.”
Sly, subtle British humour with all the class of an immaculately groomed English butler saying, “Will Sir be wanting his explosives delivered to the hotel, or will he be carrying them himself?” without a trace of irony.
Thank you Rolls-Royce, you most certainly still have it ...
Number Crunching
17 CARS
The number of Juke-R 2.0s to be made.
600k CARS
The number of “ordinary” Jukes sold in Europe since 2010.
447 KW
The power output of the Juke-R 2.0’s Nismo-enhanced twin-turbo V6.
86 KW
The power output of standard Juke’s 1.6-litre inline 4-cylinder engine.