What's Wrong With This Picture: Versa GTI? Edition
The greatest thing about the Nissan Juke is its absolute peach of an engine, a 1.6 liter, direct-injected, turbocharged little screamer. In fact it’s such a wickedly fun little engine that it’s a shame it exists only in a polarizing vehicle like the Juke. To that end, I noted in my review of Nissan’s funky “sportcross” that
Without the marketers, it’s tempting to believe that Nissan’s engineers would have widened the Versa platform, added the fantastic turbocharged engine, and then decided to simply put a steroidal Versa body on top, creating the king of all B-segment hot hatches.
Well, according to this shot from China Car Times, at least part of that fantasy is coming true. In this first shot of an updated “2011/2012” Tiida (Versa), you can see the phrase “DIG Turbo” gracing its flanks, suggesting that the Juke’s little 188 HP mill (or, at least a detuned version of same) could be headed to the next-gen Versa. Does this mean a high-po “GTI”-style variant is coming to America’s best-selling B-segment car? Let’s hope so. Frankly, the more vehicles that get that feisty little engine, the better. [Awesome “Engine porn” video for Nissan’s 1.6 DIG Turbo after the jump]
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Goofy Gallic looks aside, the Versa could make a great hot hatch with this powertrain and some suspension tweaking.
I finally saw a Juke in the sheetmetal and it's not that ugly. Dang guys, chill. Although I'm always in favor of putting high hp engines in little cars.
The Juke's got a pig snout - reminds me of a 50's deutsche railbus. Not as much room inside as Versa. Small vault windows plus rear interior cowl reminds me of the 40's. I thought there was an all new Tiida/Versa due looking nothing like above.
This powertrain would absolutely rock the Cube. Of course, so would some of the Juke's interior flair.