Written by Glennwood Ivey
Edited by Morgan Royal
Would you drive a Nissan Juke? How about a Nissan Juke NISMO? Did you even know that it exists? Me neither but they are out there. Us sports car enthusiasts are familiar with Nissan’s NISMO Performance models they make for their cars. NISMO is meant to tune Nissan’s already existing cars into a more powerful performance car meant to do more than their base counterpart.
We are familiar with the Nissan GTR Nismo, the Nissan 350z and 370z NISMO which make the cars quicker with better suspension; high performance brakes and sway bars. Consumers settled for the NISMO most of the time for the Z cars, I would too, though as it makes the car much better and it is easier to add upgrades and modifications. We also got a NISMO model for the new Nissan Z, which for that particular car I talk about more in a past article but to sum it up, some people liked it some didn’t because you could get a base Nissan Z with a 6-speed manual but the NISMO only included an automatic transmission.
But there are some Nissan vehicles NISMO has tuned up that I and many others have never heard about, and also don’t see a point such as a typical sedan like the Nissan Sentra which also got its own NISMO tune up. The Nissan Sentra NISMO replaces a lot of things that were in the base car with their NISMO products like the aerodynamic body kit; leather-wrapped shift knob; the NISMO sport front seats with synthetic suede seat trim and signature red stitching; their NISMO tuned-suspension and steering and many more features. It also offers you the chance to drive a modern Nissan sedan with a 6-speed manual transmission instead of a CVT, it is optional so you can get the NISMO Sentra with the CVT if you want. The base Sentra featured a 2.0L 4 cylinder engine with 149 horsepower, while the NISMO featured a 1.6L 4 cylinder engine with 188 horsepower, not a huge upgrade but it has some more kick to it.
The Nissan Juke NISMO is pretty much the equivalent of the Nissan Sentra NISMO but a compact car, with engine tunes; custom seats and steering wheel with modified suspension and steering; and a different body style. The base Nissan Juke carries the same engine as the NISMO, a 1.6L 4 cylinder engine with 188 horsepower. It can be FWD, or AWD; and you can get a six-speed manual transmission in the NISMO or the CVT.
The Nissan Frontier Nismo however has been discontinued since 2008 but is a pretty good truck and more for off-road purposes. This was the choice for people when getting a Nissan Truck in that era. This generation of the Nissan Frontier is known for being a good truck for workers too.
The Nissan Frontier NISMO comes with a NISMO lift kit and other supporting NISMO off road parts such as the high performance-shocks; forged upper control arms and Yokohama Geolandar X-AT tires (size 265/70/R17) and a NISMO cat-back exhaust. The base Nissan Frontier has a 2.5L 4 cylinder engine with 152 horsepower while the NISMO version carries a 4.0L V6 with 261 horsepower and a 5-6 speed automatic transmission or a 6 speed manual transmission.
In my opinion I would think out of all of these I would probably go with the truck. It seems more worth it and they also weren’t very pricey, meanwhile you might as well just get a base Juke or Sentra. Some think differently though, what do you think? Would you buy any one of these?
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