The unveiling of the Nissan Juke-R prototype has been as slow and painstaking as the car’s actual build. First we received initial details, a rendering and video of the project under way. Over the course of the following few weeks, Nissan continued keeping us on our toes with a series of videos showing the project coming together. Now that the vehicle has finally reached completion, the Japanese automaker has released a solitary image of the finished product.
Those unfamiliar ought to be impressed: Nissan took the drivetrain from its top-of-the-line GT-R – including its advanced all-wheel-drive system, twin-clutch transmission and 3.8-liter twin-turbo 480-horsepower V6 – and shoehorned it into one of its smallest vehicles, the Juke crossover. Of course, it wasn’t as simple as all that, as the Juke had to be completely gutted down to its frame and rebuilt from the ground up to accommodate an engine more than twice the size of what it was designed for.
In the end, Nissan will build two of these prototypes: one in right-hand drive (for its own roads back in Japan and those where it was built in England) and one in left-hand drive (for the rest of the civilized world). The release of this solitary photo follows a surprise unveiling in front of members of the press at a demo event in Spain.
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