You need to be just a little crazy to produce something like the Juke. At Nissan, somebody downed 15 pills marked CRAZIER in 2011, and unleashed something called the Juke-R. Billed as the world’s crossover super-car, the Juke-R lugged around the standard car’s funk over a GT-R’s running gear and engine – that’s right – all 545 bhp of it.
It was plenty mad, and pretty much defined automotive insanity. That was then, and now, four years on in 2015, Nissan acknowledges its existence by introducing an even wilder second chapter – enter the Juke-R 2.0, with not less than 600 bhp!
The global debut of the Nissan Juke-R 2.0 took place at the annual Goodwood Festival of Speed on Thursday, 25 June on the Nissan stand, and is being displayed in the Supercar Paddock for the remainder of the weekend. Version 2.0 will also have its dynamic début on Goodwood’s Hillclimb on all three days of the event, driven by Nissan GT Academy graduate and Le Mans 24 Hours driver, Jann Mardenborough.
Gareth Dunsmore, Marketing Communications General Manager for Nissan Europe said, “The Juke-R has become an iconic Crossover supercar and with the launch of the latest Juke model last year, it was the natural choice to upgrade the original Juke-R with added power and even bolder styling. The Juke-R 2.0 is a perfect ‘crossover’ of the best bits of Nissan – real innovation showcasing our Crossover prowess fused with the excitement and of the GT-R supercar engine.”
Soon to celebrate the Juke’s fifth anniversary of production, the Juke-R 2.0 arrives in time to celebrate the birthday of Europe’s funkiest and one of the most popular compact crossovers, with over 600,000 units dispatched since initially launched in 2010.
Juke-R 2.0
Whereas the Juke-R was based on the original Juke production car launched in 2010, the Juke-R 2.0 is based on the newer Juke model launched in 2014 to which there were several significant design changes and also technical enhancements.
One of these elements was the extensive personalisation options introduced based on customers’ desire. There was also a newly styled, LED running lights and LED bulbs in the tail-lights to give a fresh appearance, while new door mirrors incorporate LED side turn repeaters. The new Nissan V-motion grille at the front is a further feature.
Specific updates/features, according to a release by Nissan, on the Juke-R 2.0 include:
- Bodywork
- Front bumper; heavily redesigned both aesthetically and functionally. The cooling apertures in the front bumper are increased in size by over 100% due to increased engine cooling demand as the vehicle now runs with an uprated 600bhp engine. The bumper is manufactured from 100% carbon fibre
- Rear bumper; manufactured entirely from carbon fibre, but incorporates a visual carbon diffuser. The bumper will have new exhaust cowlings; these are manufactured from high temperature carbon
- The rear winglets are now of a one piece carbon fibre design with a visual carbon finish
- The front fenders are new shape MY2015 Juke and from standard steel
- The front and rear fender wheel arch flares are new carbon pieces blended in to the bumper and sill designs
- The side sillsare a tweaked aesthetic design, manufactured from carbon fibre
- The front headlights, upper and lower, are from the new MY2015 Juke
- The tail-lights are also from the MY2015 Juke
- The bonnet is from the new MY2015 Juke and has integrated bare carbon engine cooling ducts – these are slightly repositioned from the previous Juke-R to further improve engine and turbo cooling
- The Juke-R 2.0 uses the newer design GT-R wheels rather than the previous version
- Colour is matte black as before
- Interior
- No change, other than roof lining is now black
- Engine
- The GT-R engine has been uprated to 600bhp – the same output as the ultimate GT-R, the NISMO
- Electronics
- The headlights, tail lights and daytime running lights (DRLs) required the wiring looms of the original car to be updated to accommodate Nissan’s latest lighting technology
