Sometimes you just don’t know what you have until it’s gone, and we see our fair share of that in the automotive realm. Respectable cars can simply arrive at the wrong time, go misunderstood or fail to live up to the astronomical hype they’ve inherited. History is full of these cars; at Jalopnik, we like to celebrate them.
I’m thinking of the Honda CR-Z, which was actually kind of alright, as Jason pointed out almost exactly a year ago (what timing!) Or the Suzuki Kizashi, which is perhaps as tragic a swansong as an automaker could sing minutes before ditching the U.S. market. There’s someone in my county who drives a Kizashi seemingly every day, and I bet that’s a happy driver.
What car, unappreciated in its time, do you think history will one day look back favorably on? My choice is the Nissan Juke, a car that confused everyone when it debuted in 2010 on account of its questionable headlights, jacked-up and puffed-out proportions and take-it-or-leave-it attitude to rear-seat headroom. Little did we know a decade ago that it was a harbinger of the crossover revolution to come.
Personally, I always kind of dug the design. It’s got that weird rally car vibe I’d be looking for in a crossover, if I were shopping for a crossover, and you could get one with a 6-speed manual and a respectable 215 horsepower if you opted for the Nismo RS version.
With enough time, I believe we’ll come back around on these little guys. But what about you? What car do you think will get the justice it deserves?