True to its Tokyo breeding, Nissan cube is ideally sized and packaged for congested streets in urban America. Mechanical details and even the styling of “box cars” like the cube, Kia Soul, and Scion xB are secondary to how well they fit into crowded urban and beachside neighborhoods, and how simple they are, how minimalist they are. Box cars are the automobile stripped to 21st century essentials, with a bit of anime character folded in. By these measures, cube is a fantastic urban scooter.
Prime Numbers
- Price: $13,990. As tested: $20,120.
- Engine: 1.8-liter DOHC transversely mounted inline four
- Horsepower: 122 hp @ 5,200
- Torque: 127 lb ft @ 4,800
- Drivetrain: Front-wheel-drive with six-speed CVT
- Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts/Torsion beam with built-in stabilizer bar
- Length: 157.5-in.
- Width: 66.7-in.
- Height: 65.0-in.
- Wheelbase: 104.7-in.
- Weight: 2,904 lbs
Who’s The Buyer
This car is for you if:
- You loved the original Scion xB and want a similarly boxy car with a small, thrifty engine.
- You want to carry four friends to dinner or the movies in your over-populated urban neighborhood: maximum space in a minimalist package, and it’s easy to park.
- You’ve got funk, and can laugh at yourself and the world.
This car is not for you if:
- You want strong acceleration and excellent handling dynamics.
- You prefer a strongly male and reserved public image.
- You want the boxy cargo space to carry your pack of hounds to the “dog beach” in your area, in which case you might be better off with the aged Honda Element because of its urethane floors and water-repellent seat fabric.
Alternatives To Consider
- Honda Element. Originally designed to attract Gen X and Gen Y surfers, Element instead sold well to typical Honda Baby Boomer customers. Honda missed the target, but Element developed a cult Boomer following. To attract younger buyers, Honda launched the Element SC, which still misses the point due to its price. Element is an excellent vehicle, but is also more expensive, larger, thirstier, more powerful, and more sophisticated than cube.
- Honda Fit. Not quite a “box car.” Fit’s small 1.5-liter engine was recalibrated to deliver a peaky 117 hp, putting the Fit within spitting distance of the cube’s power ratings. Fit has the Magic Seat, an amazingly versatile rear seat that flips and folds into a wide range of positions to enhance cargo space. Fit Sport is the one to buy, out the door for about $17,000. Fit possesses Honda levels of refinement in most respects, though Honda is guilty of thrifting its cars in recent years, with more suspension noise and cheaper materials than you would have expected in the past.
- Kia Soul. A breakthrough vehicle for Kia, the first Kia I’d recommend without caveat. Women seem to find the hamster ads appealing, but I’m not sure a male child would want to drive around in a Soul after seeing those ads. Soul captures the essence of the original, smaller Scion xB, but with a fresh and distinctly Kia style—and whoever thought we’d use the term “Kia style”? Soul’s bottom trim level is stripped-down with an old engine and manual transmission, meant only to provide a very low MSRP for dealer ads. Better to look at the three higher trim levels, which offer considerable value. The top-spec Soul Sport is comparable to the Nissan cube krom tested here, and is about $1,000 less in price. Like Scion xB and cube, Kia Soul is an IIHS Top Safety Pick. Who knew? The Koreans have learned to build a proper body structure. That’s a long haul from the Hyundai Excel trash bins of the Eighties and the Kia-built Ford Festivas of the early Nineties, which were rolling heaps.
- Scion xB. Second-generation grew bigger and heavier, and it’s designed for the US market, so the current xB does not stand out the same way the first-gen “narrow-gauge” Japan Domestic Market xB did. But the current xB meets the desires of many first-gen xB owners and delivers a very high level of features for the money, plus an excellent selection of accessories and audio systems which, by the way, Nissan, Kia and others have copied. The rear seat offers ample legroom. Cargo and seating versatility is high, build quality is excellent, xB is an IIHS Top Safety Pick, and the Scion brand ranks at the top of most measures of customer satisfaction. Soul, cube, and xB cover the spectrum in size.
WHILE LIVING IN HIROSHIMA, JAPAN, IN 1999, working on a product development and marketing study, I experienced first-hand the Kei-jidosha Suzuki-built “box cars” that young Japanese males were turning into their own version of 1970s American disco vans. During my stint in Japan, I saw these boxes running around every night. The kids were typical Japanese tuners, with a few “coconut head” surfers also driving them, no doubt because surf boards fit so perfectly in back. If you’ve never spent time threading the narrow back streets and alleys of urban Japan, or parts of Europe, you won’t understand how useful a tiny van can be.
When the original Scion xB turned up in the US, I understood, and knew it would be popular in my over-populated beach neighborhood. The stumpy MINI Cooper S I had at the time was also popular in my neighborhood– MINIs are easy to park in crowded neighborhoods, though their low ride height doesn’t mesh well with tall city curbing. The Scion xB went much farther than the MINI, with four doors, ample room for four or even five people, a tall seating position that made it easy to get in and out of the car, plus huge cargo space and a lower price– small on the outside and big on the inside.
Though more radically styled than the original xB, which was an anime version of the Chevy Astro van, Nissan cube is close to the 2003 xB concept, with slightly more power, making freeway entry ramps less intimidating.
Engine, Transmission, Drivetrain
Based on the conservative Nissan Versa, cube is first cousin to the Renault Megane sold in Europe. Versa’s 1.8-liter four-cylinder is partnered with either a manual transmission or a continuously variable transmission, or CVT, which is an efficient form of automatic transmission. Our cube krom test car had the CVT, which best fits cube’s character. I wouldn’t bother with the manual transmission.
cube’s double overhead cam engine is sophisticated and smooth, delivering a nice balance between fuel mileage and power. It has about five horsepower more than the recently tweaked Honda Fit. More importantly, cube has much more torque than the Honda Fit, so it performs better in urban driving. Kia Soul’s 2.0-liter engine has 142 HP.
CVTs have unique characteristics making them an excellent choice for a small-engined city car. Nissan has spent enough man-years developing this transmission that powertrain sound is unobtrusive under a wide range of conditions, and the CVT makes the most of the torque and horsepower available. Unless you’re running up a steep hill, or full-throttle to enter a highway, engine sound is subdued in the cube.
There’s no real “kick-down” as with a conventional automatic. You press hard on the accelerator pedal and the transmission seamlessly raises revs to the engine’s most powerful point. If you stay on the throttle hard, the engine will smoothly and steadily climb in revs and stay there until you are up to highway speed: ease off the throttle and revs drop dramatically. Above 4500-5000 rpm at full throttle when you’re pushing the car up to highway speed, the engine is boomy, but I doubt most owners will encounter it often or care. cube is not, by any stretch, a performance car. Again, the CVT is the best transmission for cube as the involvement demanded by a manual transmission doesn’t fit the transportation module character of the car.
Suspension, Steering, Brakes
Short, with surprising outward visibility, an extremely tight turning radius, and very light electric steering, cube can thread nearly any parking lot situation imaginable, and parallel park into unbelievably tight spots. Bred in the crowded streets of Tokyo, cube can ably cope with US traffic conditions.
Steering is extremely light with little feel, thanks to electric power assist. cube is not a performance car, so light steering is acceptable. If this were an Infiniti G37S, MINI Cooper S or Mustang GT, I’d complain about the lack of steering feel. I complained about it in the Ford Fiesta review, but Fiesta has sporting pretensions (and latent capabilities) that seem to warrant more evolved steering. cube has rheostat steering, perfectly suited to an urban bumper car.
Braking is adequate for a car happiest at speeds below 50-60 mph. Honda Element, Scion xB and Kia Soul all have four-wheel discs, but cube’s rear drums are not a significant fault in context of its mission as urban scooter. cube also includes a full suite of braking technologies, from ABS and Brake Assist to traction and stability control. Nissan may eventually be forced to adopt four-wheel discs if only for marketing reasons and safety imagery.
cube’s ride is soft and comfortable enough without wallowing on patchy road surfaces. You won’t mistake cube for a Cooper S and I don’t recommend pushing it too hard through corners. A Cooper S drives like the front-drive BMW it is, but performance is NOT part of the cube equation. Relax, take your time, enjoy the drive, enjoy the view beyond the billboard-size windshield, and all’s well. cube will force you to set aside Type A driving and relax. If you can’t do that, don’t buy the car.
Body, Design, Quality
cube, Soul, and xB are the US-scaled versions of those kei-jidosha “box cars” I found so amusing on the narrow streets of Hiroshima, Japan. They’re also built to a far higher standard : kei cars are pretty cheap and not suited to life outside East Asia. cube has six airbags, a well-engineered body structure and standard stability control. Just like the Kia Soul and Scion xB, Cube was rated a Top Safety Pick by the IIHS.
cube has a tall, airy cabin. The windshield sits far ahead of the driver, conjuring images of an anime big rig. Though six three, I had about four inches of head room. True to the box car genre, cube is roomy and comfortable. Because of the distant placement of the windshield and the extreme headroom, plus its kitschy exterior design, cube reminded me a bit of the VW New Beetle which, thanks to its high roof and huge windshield, has a similar “glass bubble” ambiance. cube’s tall, upright windshield brings one problem: wind ruffle at highway speeds. By 60-65 mph, you get a noticeable amount of wind noise at the A pillars. Solution? Turn up the radio. This is an issue Nissan engineers might resolve when the cube is refreshed in a couple years.
As a genre, “box cars” are among the easiest to live with in urban neighborhoods. You either laugh and smile when you walk up to the cube, or you think, “What the heck am I doing in this thing?” There’s really no in-between. cube is even more polarizing than the original Scion xB. For me, it’s a Flintstones telephone booth, or an anime car. Like a childhood toy, it can spark your imagination. As with our comments on cube’s relative lack of performance, here too if you’re Type A aggressive and can’t laugh at yourself or drive at a moderate pace, don’t buy a cube.
cube’s asymmetrical design may be off-putting for some, but proves brilliant once you’re INSIDE the car, as you can see cars and motorcycles lurking in your blind spot, thanks to an ample glass area at the right rear corner of the car. No need for a blind spot camera and warning system as on out-sized SUVs and über-sedans.
The body engineering team delivered the typically good work one expects from the Japanese. Panel gaps are even and panels sharply aligned. Japanese build quality. The door openings are big, the lower door sill is limited, and the doors swing open wide. In short, it’s easy to get in and out.
That also applies to the rear hatch, which swings open like a refrigerator door to the left, putting the door between you and traffic when loading cargo curbside.
A slave to fashion? Perhaps, but from the inside-out the cube’s tall, glassy greenhouse is highly functional, a sign of intelligent industrial design.
Ergonomics, Interior
cube’s interior is a great place to spend time when shuttling around urban and suburban streets. cube’s primary gauge pack is excellent, rendered in cool blue electroluminescent light. All sightlines for gauges and controls are clear. Anyone can get in the cube and within a few minutes have most of the important gauges and controls figured out. cube is the exact opposite of more expensive, feature-laden cars that demand an investment of time and instruction before all controls and gauges are understood. cube is minimalist, like a scooter.
Heating and air-conditioning controls on the center stack are concentrated in a circular cluster. Buttons and knobs are large and easy to work, with a positive if delicate touch. The audio system has the only major set of controls. In the cube krom the audio system has a Rockford-Fosgate subwoofer and enhanced speaker system. From the cube S up, there is Bluetooth connectivity. Like the car, the dash and center stack are clean and minimalist, with a humorous style.
Certain shapes are repeated throughout the vehicle. The steering wheel-mounted toggles to operate cruise control and audio have a dog-bone shape, which is repeated in the layout of the speedo and tach, and shape of the dashboard. Another repeated shape is the water drop of concentric radiating circles of the roof liner, and the matte black exterior panel behind the left-rear passenger window.
Interior materials are oddly conventional, but well executed. The door panels and dash are made of hard plastics, typical of cars priced in the teens. Seats in the krom edition are faced in a silver and black checked pattern with dark cloth for the seat base and sides. The fabric has a soft hand. cube krom offers a rearview monitor and intelligent key.
Because cube is, well, a cube, interior space and particularly cargo space are good. The rear seat reclines, and slides forward and back to maximize cargo or rear legroom, depending on your needs. The front seats can recline very nearly flat, so when you’re parked at the beach or you’re tailgating with your parentals at a college football game, you can recline the front seats, then push back and recline the rear seat to set up a space to lounge and relax. cube could use a few more inches of rear-seat leg room.
Oddly enough, compare cube’s wheelbase with Versa’s and you see exactly where that legroom went: Versa’s wheelbase is about 3 inches longer with commensurate increase in rear legroom. Hmmmm. A product planning compromise in favor of abbreviated overall dimensions of the car.
As with the Ford Fiesta we drove a few months ago, there’s a deep cargo well, then a large step up to the folded rear seatbacks. As in the Fiesta, this is to maximize cargo volume. I have a personal preference for raised flat cargo floors that provide a wide, flat surface when the rear seats are folded. That said, cube can haul plenty of cargo. The base cube is available with a rear-seat delete option, clearly aimed at local shopkeepers who want a cool delivery van, competing with the boxier and more utilitarian if flawed Ford Transit Connect.
Conclusion
Some time ago, an English friend who manufactures race vehicles asked me about the original Scion xB. Being a member of the English gentry, raised on an estate, he couldn’t understand why a young man would want a refrigerator box with a puny engine. Why not a used Lotus Elise or used BMW? Why not a restored vintage sports car that would attract all the coeds? Well, cost. Cost of maintenance and insurance, plus initial purchase price. If dad’s paying for the car, does he really want to turn his kid loose in a car that might kill him, or at the least end up wadded into a very expensive ball? Probably not. And Junior has the advantage of a car that can haul his belongings home for summer, or from dorm room to cool senior-year apartment.
Which leads to another question: cube marketing painfully copies the marketing of the original Scion xB, with accessories, ties to art schools, and the like. But who is buying the car? In my neighborhood, I see them driven by very much the same folks who bought the VW New Beetle: baby boomers who want to remember the Summer of Love. Under current economic conditions, any sale is a good sale. But is the cube an alternative for the older folks who favor Nissan Versa (average age in the fifties), or enticement for younger buyers heading off to Blue Mountain State or photography school in Santa Barbara?
cube was the natural competitor in Japan for the Toyota bB that became the original 2003 Scion xB. cube has finally arrived in the US. If you’re a Type A, aggressive male, you want to move on. This car is not for you, just as the other “box cars” are not. If you need a well-built, inexpensive car with excellent safety engineering, a high level of features and plenty of cargo space for shuttling around a crowded neighborhood, cube is an excellent choice.
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