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"While I was putting an early production prototype of the 2011 Nissan Juke through its paces on Mulholland Drive, a random lady walked up to our photo location on the side of the road and stated: &amp;quot;That thing looks like the largest mosquito to ever escape from the Amazon Forest.&amp;quot; Hmmm. Well, that&amp;#039;s one way of putting it (and no doubt each of you has your own poignant description). For its part, Nissan says the front end was designed to give the Juke a modern &amp;quot;urban buggy look,&amp;quot; or that of &amp;quot;an alligator coming out of the water.&amp;quot; They didn&amp;#039;t mention anything about mosquitoes.   Delving further into just exactly what Nissan&amp;#039;s designers were thinking while styling the Juke, we were told the lower half of the car is modeled like a semi-rugged crossover SUV, while the upper half is supposed to make you think sports car, particularly the raked windshield and short greenhouse.   Here&amp;#039;s what we can tell you, after spending a few hours in this new Nissan: Whether for good reasons or bad, the Juke causes a stir everywhere it goes.   The Juke\u2014based on the platform of the 5-door Versa\u2014is powered by an all-new 1.6-liter turbocharged and direct-injected 4-cylinder with an estimated 180 bhp and 170 lb.-ft. of torque (official power figures will be released in August). Although there&amp;#039;s noticeable turbo lag down low, once on boost it&amp;#039;s impressively strong for such a small engine, especially from 4000-6000 rpm. All-wheel-drive models come only with a Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT), but front-drive models can be equipped with a 6-speed manual (unfortunately we didn&amp;#039;t get to test the manual, as there are only two Jukes in the country right now\u2014both all-wheel drive).   Nissan sees the Juke as a competitor for the Mini Cooper, and feels a potential buyer could also be &amp;quot;a guy who would be considering a used BMW 3 Series.&amp;quot; The 3 Series part is probably a stretch, but we can tell you that body roll is minimal, grip is excellent and the Juke flat out eats up bumpy, twisty back roads. Helping the all-wheel-drive model is a multilink rear suspension (fwd models get a torsion-beam setup) as well as the first B-segment use of rear torque vectoring, which transfers power left and right between the rear wheels. The one downside when driving the Juke with aggression is its CVT, which can be shifted manually, but occasionally gets confused as to which &amp;quot;gear&amp;quot; you want it to be in.   The Juke is a pretty small device, measuring just 162.4 in. long, but there&amp;#039;s actually a decent amount of room inside, both front and rear. The interior is highly styled and features a new I-CON vehicle information interface. With the press of a button, the center stack display can change icons between Climate and D-Mode, the last which allows you to then alter the parameters of the throttle, steering and CVT among Normal, Sport and Eco.   The Juke will start under $20,000 when it goes on sale in the U.S. in October, with fully loaded all-wheel-drive models coming in around $25,000. Overall, it&amp;#039;s a comfortable and highly competent sporty crossover. The question remains whether its polarizing styling will turn people on, or turn them away. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/first-drives/reviews/a15930/sneak-preview-driving-the-2011-nissan-juke/>