Nissan

Cube

It’s never going to be the most aerodynamic of vehicles, but there is a place in the motoring market for the Nissan Cube with all its versatility, economic running costs and unique styling. And there’s no doubting it will stand out in a crowd.

The good

You'll never lose it in a crowded car park

The bad

Looks like a giant box

Tech Specs

Price from

£14,000

Combined Fuel up to

42.8mpg

0-62 from

11.3 seconds

max speed up to

109mph

co2 from

151g/km

Test Drive

Nissan Cube 1.6 Kaizen

I’ve seen plenty of heads turn in envy as I cruise by in the sheer beauty that is a modern-day supercar, but it wasn’t the green-eyed monster coming into play when I passed in the Nissan Cube – more a case of utter jaw-dropping disbelief.

For never before has a car suited its name quite so much and in pearl white it looked just like the Pope-mobile. In fact, with its rear privacy glass I think a couple of onlookers were actually straining to see if his holiness was present.

To be brutally honest, the Cube is a car that simply cannot be ignored – quite a masterstroke in reality as that’s exactly what Nissan set out to achieve along with several other manufacturers that have wandered from the custom design path in recent years to produce weird and whacky models of all shapes and sizes.

Whilst other manufacturers strive for perfect lines and streamlining, the Cube looks different from every side.

From the moment you lay eyes on the Cube, you cannot fail to notice the unusual characteristics such as a wrap-around rear window that looks like a trendy pair of sunglasses and the totally unsymmetrical appearance.

And the quirkiness continues inside too. The first thing to grab your attention is the bright orange elastic bands on the armrests to hold small papers – mine pinged off into the distance and proved far to fiddly to reattach, so a bit of a gimmick in my opinion.

Elsewhere, there’s stacks of really handy little storage compartments and trays and the back seat passengers have a safe place to keep their drinks too. The cabin is very light and spacious and needless to say, all occupants benefit from plenty of headroom – no matter how high their hats may be!

Further creature comforts include a panoramic roof with Japanese-style, paper-look shade, climate control, cruise control, keyless start/stop, rear parking camera, rain-sensing wipers, sat nav, a great sound system with CD player and plenty more besides.

The 1.6-litre petrol-driven engine provides ample power and the five-speed manual transmission is nice and responsive.

In and around town, the Cube is very agile and nimble to handle although the larger-than-life front pillar can cause a slight obstruction at times.

Then, out on the faster roads, the Cube can easily keep up with faster moving traffic but cabin noise is quite loud due to the lack of streamlining.

Nissan has kitted out the Cube with plenty of top notch safety features including anti-lock brakes, electronic stability programme, numerous airbags and lots more.

I have to confess, the £15k Cube is the first test car that has almost left me speechless.

But to sum up, we don’t all want to be the same, and if you drive around in a Nissan Cube, you’ll certainly get noticed and stand out from the crowd.