Take the square route with Nissan's Cube
DUBBED by my better half the Marmite car – "you either love it or hate it" – Nissan's Cube brings the kindergarten concept of car design to the roads of Britain, writes Robin Auchterlonie.
They call it a timeless design and they're right. Kids have been drawing cars like this for decades.
There are more straight lines to its shape than you'd find in the toilet at a celebrity party, and it's almost as square in appearance as the box in which my new golf shoes arrived the other week.
But open the door to this quirky machine, which I'm reliably informed doesn't come in a fetching shade of bright red with optional Royal Mail stickers for the side, and you'll be hard pressed to find a straight line anywhere.
The dash has a unique wave-like sweep from one door to the other, the seat squabs feel flat but aren't although they do lack a bit of support, and even the huge sunblind that covers the equally huge glass roof has curves that make it interesting as well as functional. It's got the appearance of a 'rice paper' shade that cuts out the glare of daytime sunlight but which at night allows silhouettes from passing trees and street lights to flicker around above your head.
It's been a cult car in Japan since it first flashed its headlights back in 1998 and over a million of them have been sold.
To celebrate its arrival here in the UK, the first 100 sold will be LDN Special Editions, which means they come with a unique Bitter Chocolate metallic paint job with matching velour trim, which took one visitor to the interior of the car on a nostalgic trip back to his wedding day 35 years ago. What a suit that was…..
As the memsahib succinctly put it, the Cube is a love or hate thing. She liked it and so do I. It's almost the perfect urban transport with its MINI like wheel-at-each-corner stance helping keep the space it takes up on the road to a minimum yet offering superb interior space with its slab sides offering no restrictions on the available room inside.
But most of all I like it because it's different. You can forgive its obvious body roll that becomes evident if you push it along, the overlight steering or the somewhat upright driving position, because they're things you can get used to. Like you have to get used to people staring at you as you drive past.
It's a car that's always light inside because it had a largish glass area, particularly above your head, and also huge are the sun visors that when pulled down resemble big slabs of wood, so big you have to glance underneath.
The LDN version, priced at 14,600, comes with climate control, rain sensing wipers and auto headlights as standard.
Standard Cube (14,000) has a glass roof, rear privacy glass, while Kaizen (15,100) adds a rear parking camera and full climate control. Currently there's just one engine, a 1.6 110bhp petrol unit offering decent economy with either a five speed manual or Nissan's CVT automatic setup. A diesel of 1.5 litre capacity will be available from May.
And according to the guys from CAP, who predict future residual values, buying small doesn't mean you'll lose a lot after three years. They're saying the Cube's bold approach to auto design will make it more desirable for longer and predict after three years/30,000 miles it'll still command 45 per cent of its purchase price.
It's been named one of the 50 cars that changed the world by the London Design Museum, and when we start seeing more and more of them on the road – Nissan expect to sell around 2,000 this year – it's going to change people's perceptions for sure.
Car ownership is all about choice and that choice just got wider….
FAST FACTS
>> Iconic angular design
>> Simple line up starting at 14,000
>> Named by the London Design Museum as one of 50 cars that changed the world
>> Options include fluffy dashboard mat (22) and rubber bands (11.75) that fit on the door handles
Standard equipment includes rear privacy glass, manual air conditioning, Bluetooth, rain sensing wipers, glass roof, ESP and i-key
Combined fuel consumption 42.8
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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