Case Study: Nissan Juke-R

What does it take to turn a standard baby family crossover into a supercar-killing publicity phenomenon? That’s what Nissan asked us to do with their Juke. In 22 weeks from concept to production we gave them their answer: JUKE-R, the world’s first ‘super crossover’.

Our brief was to combine the essence of Nissan’s ground-breaking baby crossover, the Juke, with their flagship GT-R supercar, and make it road-legal and durable.

We fulfilled Nissan’s vision in a technical showcase which blended the Juke’s body with the full 485bhp twin-turbo 3.8-litre V6 and four-wheel drive GT-R powertrain to attain shattering performance with equally impressive handling, road holding and braking. It reached 60mph in 3.7 seconds and a top speed of 160mph. 

JUKE-R was an instant and massive promotional success,racking up for Nissan a long list of positive, high-profile media test drives,reports and videos around the world. A video of the JUKE-R’s build became an Internet phenomenon with well over 1million views.

There was still more mileage in the concept for Nissan. When the standard Juke was facelifted three years later, we updated the JUKE-R to align with the new model. We took the power up to 591bhp for JUKE-R 2.0 and it was again warmly received by the world’s media, duly generating a lot more positive publicity for Nissan and their sporting credentials.