Sure, you’ve seen a Nissan Rogue. But have you ever seen a Nissan Rogue, on treads? Turns out little SUVs look way cooler without wheels.
The Nissan Rouge Warrior you’re looking at here is pretty much just a regular Rogue with American Track Truck’s Dominator tread system. That can be fitted to pretty much anything (including AWD cars), which one of the company’s representatives told me would “start at about $9,000.”
As for installation, they say “it’s as easy as changing a tire.” Awesome.
Unfortunately it also cuts your top speed to about 40 MPH and makes turning a different experience, but it’s hard to beat for all that driving on ski hills you do. Tread all the things!
“Nissan has a well-rounded suite of all-wheel drive crossover vehicles to master the toughest winter roads,” says Nissan Canada’s President Joni Paiva in a press release. “In fact, Nissan’s all-wheel drive (AWD) system adapts to road conditions 30 times faster than the blink of an eye.”
Can you feeble-minded consumers of crossovers even comprehend what that means? Of course not; that’s why Nissan is using a video of their little car turned into a tank to give you the message. “Trust us, this is what all-wheel-drive feels like!”
It’d be more accurate to say “this is what snow tires feel like,” but I digress.
Nissan seems to have a thing for putting treads on small SUVs, which is just fine with me. These commercials are a lot more fun to watch when they’re not just dripping in CGI.
Contact the author at andrew@jalopnik.com.