Lamb dressed as mutton
What this should have been is closer to this here.
But typical style, the best concept and prototypes always get watered down.
Nissan Juke Nismo RS: Family hot-hatch SUV that looks a bit like Darth Vader's hat
A sporty SUV seems like an oxymoron, but from the moment you get into the Juke it feels like a great combination of two themes. Here is a practical car which punches above its weight in desirability. Crossovers are trendy. Nismo is Nissan’s sporty moniker, so this is a crossover which absorbs SUV, family car, and hot hatch, …
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Saturday 11th July 2015 11:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
Can we have a separate reg contractor cars review section, where you cover cars likely to be acquired and driven by IT contractors: Aston, Bentley, Ferrari, Porsche, Overfinched Rangies, Tesla, maybe even a lowly BMW or two. You get the idea.
I've already had to explain to a bewildered contractor what the pictures in this article are supposed to represent and it wasn't an easy journey for either of us. He was doing ok until I gently suggested that the seats of a Juke ('a kind of cocktail, right?'... 'Er, no, open your eyes and look again') might not be covered in hand-stitched leather.
(Full disclosure: I am not a contractor, but I need to keep a wallet of them happy.)
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Saturday 11th July 2015 13:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
I would prefer to see actual 'working' vehicles - ones that you can throw a half ton of concrete blocks into to reinforce the server room floor or a half dozen racks, assembled or not, and all the hardware they need. We have had to do both as well as remove old equipment that we have replaced and no, you can't just go out and hire a truck on the weekend especially if it means you have to do a 150 km round trip to do so.
While the cars mentioned here in the Reg are fine if you live and work in the city and maybe travel to another city for the weekend not all of us do. Some of us live, and even work, in the country where roads are not brilliant and we may even have to visit such nasty places as industrial estates where you frequently encounter very nasty things on the roads up to and including 44 gallon drums blowing merrily along - not the sort of thing to hit your posh car/SUV.
My disclosure: I drive a 1998 Mazda 4x4 crew cab pickup rated at three quarter ton load capacity and a couple of my engineers have Toyota 4x4 pickups.
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Saturday 11th July 2015 13:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Working vehicles
"My disclosure: I drive a 1998 Mazda 4x4 crew cab pickup rated at three quarter ton load capacity and a couple of my engineers have Toyota 4x4 pickups."
I have a little Toyota city car with a flat load floor that can hold two full size washing machines with the back seats down, partly because it's basically a van shape rather than having lots of curvy bits added on to make it look pretty. My neighbour, who does just as much work on his house as I do, has a "contractor car" which means he has to have everything, including the stuff I can just throw in the back, delivered.
It's like women and high heeled shoes; some of them just have to have them even though it means walking is agony because they look nice but, fundamentally, are not that much use for actual walking.
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Sunday 12th July 2015 00:15 GMT Eddy Ito
Re: Working vehicles
I'd really like something along the lines of a mid 70s Pinzgauer but on my side of the pond it's probably easier to convince Toyota to make this a reality. Of course I'm afraid they'd ruin it by not offering a diesel engine which are rarer than hens teeth in imports over here.
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Sunday 12th July 2015 09:22 GMT Sgt_Oddball
Re: Working vehicles
I too own a Toyota corolla estate and it's astonishing how much can be piled into one when you try. Also helps that the seats fold down flat and there's some clever extra storage under the boot deck for the parcel shelf and the likes.
Managed a house move using it and only hired a van for the really big stuff and so I could take passengers.
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Sunday 12th July 2015 06:36 GMT Voland's right hand
I was going to say the same
I was going to say the same. Some of us have to drive on crap country roads and take equipment to customers and conferences.
If I want a metrosexual car review I can read mainstay press.
Disclosure No 1: I have driven a juke as a rental. While somewhat dysfunctional in terms of internal arrangement it is OK as a car. At Meah level... kind of OK.
Disclosure No 2: I drive a 2007 Isuzu Rodeo Denver crew cab (mostly pristine, mods are only on the electronic side - 5V circuit, etc). It will be taking some kit for a demo to a conference this week. This time it is nothing major in terms of size, but not something you can fit into a juke together with your luggage. It has in the past taken kit to places which will simply destroy a Juke by loading it (your average half-rack router nowdays usually exceeds the rear axle loading on most cars).
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Saturday 11th July 2015 13:03 GMT cambsukguy
What about the increasingly vertical frontal aspect
Are there any figures for pedestrian and cycling injuries, any increase since SUVs and these nasty-looking cars gained popularity?
Have the figures stayed the same when they could have been reduced. Is the extra are of impact reducing the overall death/injury rate by reducing the pressure of a given impact or is the fact that pedestrians and cyclists are more likely to be hurled to their death in the direction of the cars' progress rather than deflected or rolling over the top.
Is the increased likelihood of chest impact causing more death rather than severe leg damage?
Is the fact that it is increasingly difficult to see past more and more vehicles because of their height making it more likely there are more rear impacts in road accidents?
Are more smaller children being injured because the drivers are ever higher and distant from the pedestrians.
Are more and more privacy windows making it even harder to see traffic so that a person I couldn't care less about has a via of me but no me of them so I am even less likely to know if they will run me over on my bike.
Still, as long as they think I envy them, douches.
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Saturday 11th July 2015 20:52 GMT David Black
Re: What about the increasingly vertical frontal aspect
You have the Internet and I'm fairly confident you could go find a decent source. But I would say that the progressive improvement of pedestrian safety (including children) is a massive leap forward in the last couple of decades (originally pioneered by Volvo). While those frontages may look more aggressive, they are MUCH softer and crumple friendly. Speaking as someone who has had his skull shattered by a vehicle (white transit if you must know), it's close to my heart and the response from regulators and vehicle manufacturers is fairly decent and progressive. Commercial vehicles are still a joke though and account for around half of head injury pedestrian fatalities when they actually make up less than 5% of all traffic.
If you don't believe me, bend over and run head first as fast as you can into a selection of stationary vehicles. 4x4s, saloon, sports, or convertible cars, even motorcycles... go for it, but I guarantee the one that'll hurt most is the ambulance you'll need :)
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Sunday 12th July 2015 06:55 GMT Voland's right hand
Re: What about the increasingly vertical frontal aspect
The "aggressive" cars have about a foot (if not more) of crumple space behind the radiator grille and a much thinner than you would expect bonnet which is designed to "crumple fold".
It appeared ~ 1998 with if memory serves me right the Daihatsu Sirion MK1 going off the scale on the Eu pedestrian safety tests. As a result they changed the rating method (so results prior to that are not comparable). By 2002~ ish all cars used similar design (I am not saying copied as it most likely was parallel development). The only more recent addition to the design is the extension of the plastic "pedestrian protection" portion all the way to the front wheels on most cars.
This is not present on most commercials. The bonnet of Transit van is still as thick as it was 10+ years ago. The crumple space is missing too.
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Monday 13th July 2015 12:14 GMT cambsukguy
Re: What about the increasingly vertical frontal aspect
From a government briefing that happened to be high in the search results (2013). I looked at the trend for the preceding six years (SN/SG/2198):
Car drivers: 110000 -> 81000, 74%
Car passengers: 52000 -> 39000, 75%
M/Cycle riders: 22000 -> 18500, 85%
Pedestrians: 30000 -> 25000, 84%
Cyclists: 16000 -> 19000, 119%
I appreciate that these are condensed from statistics and therefore presumably can say anything one wishes but the trends definitely favour car drivers and their passengers. Cyclists may have increased in number somewhat, I hope it was a large amount because that trend is not good.
Common sense also says that a BMW X5 weighs more then a Ford Focus and imparts more energy in an accident at a given speed.
Common sense also says that an X5 is harder to see through or around and therefore requires a larger distance be maintained - except that any gap left will be filled by a similar-looking vehicle almost immediately, often from the inside, possibly while wielding a mobile phone. And yes, the BBC did have an article asking why, and explaining, that studies show that drivers of such vehicles do run more red lights and risk others more because they feel more entitled to and safer doing so.
They may have perfected things like traction control but they still haven't made a particular group of cars able to at least indicate when the car changes direction let alone prior to doing so which is the desirable thing to do for others at least.
Having watched and avoided the lunatic just the other day weaving through the school pickup carnage one handed while passing a small convenience store and its busy car park exit, holding her phone up in her line of sight, texting as she went, presumably telling someone something earth shatteringly important like "just picked up the kids from school - all well, just idiots sounding their horns for no reason and waving at me", I can see some car safety improvements still need to be made.
Or braking hard on a roundabout while someone to the left of me decided this wasn't their exit after all and making a hard right and stopping mid-lane, only to find I was impacted at least two seconds after stopping from behind by someone 'surprised' that I had stopped - more like using her phone and didn't notice the near accident in front.
It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
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Sunday 12th July 2015 03:05 GMT earl grey
Re: What about the increasingly vertical frontal aspect
The vehicle manufacturers have been forced by government regulators to make their sprog with the increased vertical you whinge about in order to REDUCE pedestrian injuries (so that idiot wankers playing with their iToys are not rolling up the front of the vehicle and bouncing over the top). Bikers are just an added bonus.
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Monday 13th July 2015 11:10 GMT Cuddles
Re: Tut tut
"As any fule no, an oxymoron is a contradiction in terms. A sporty Sports Utility Vehicle is not an oxymoron, it is a tautology."
No it isn't. The "sports" in "sports utility vehicle" has nothing to do with the vehicle itself being sporty. The idea is that you can throw in all kinds of sports equipment - bikes, boats, piles of kit, etc. - in a car that has plenty of space for them, and then drive pretty much anywhere you need to be able to use them. That means higher roof, more ground clearance, 4x4 usually of the AWD variety, generally more in the way of torque than acceleration and speed, and so on. Pretty much the exact opposite of an actual sporty car, which will tend to be small, light, low clearance, and so on.
And this car perfectly demonstrates exactly why the two don't go together at all well. We have here a chunky, tall car that despite its size barely has any room in the back for either kit or passengers, has far too little ground clearance to handle the mildest dirt tracks, is only 2WD, and has such a small fuel tank that none of that will matter because you'll never actually get anywhere in the first place. Or looked at from the other direction, it has a decent power engine, but with a much too large and high body to be in any way sporty. So you have a "crossover" that's crossed over so many times it can't actually do any of its jobs at all well. Of course, this makes it perfect for the soccer mums/Chelsea tractor brigade that it's actually aimed at, but for anyone actually interested in either sports or sporty cars it's just terrible.
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Monday 13th July 2015 13:37 GMT Dan McIntyre
My Mother has a Juke and while it's fine for her, I can't stand it. Too large outside for the space you get inside, which is pathetic. It's all overblown bodywork but is a Nissan Micra underneath.
My disclosure - I drive a 2013 Vauxhall GTC. Originally part of the Astra family though built on the chassis and suspension of the Insignia VXR and is now a car in it's own right having been divorced from the Astra.
It looks pretty on the outside and has plenty of space on the inside. Come October mine is hauling me and luggage for 7 people, plus my medical supplies and spare fuel cans, to Portugal and back.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
