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Nissan Juke-R pitted against Bugatti Veyron in brilliantly odd drag race

The Nissan Juke-R must've been a tough car to build a business case for, yet the madcap little crossover with the heart of a GT-R is now a production reality. Admittedly, we should probably assign some quotes around "production," since the vehicle is being built on a one-by-one on-demand basis at extraordinary cost - at an estimated price of well over $600,000, it has little in common with the already bonkers everyday Juke. We're just happy it exists at all.
With 545 horsepower, we also didn't figure it needed more power. But that apparently hasn't stopped the tuning community, which probably only had to adapt performance adders designed for the GT-R to the mechanically similar CUV. Thus, we end up with this mile-long drag race, which pits a Bugatti Veyron against a Juke-R prepared by an outfit called Shpilli Villi Engineering with a claimed 700 horsepower. That's still well down on horsepower versus the legendary quad-turbo supercar, but the much smaller Nissan also figures to be a lot lighter while boasting similar all-wheel-drive traction. We don't have much more information to go on other than this video, and it doesn't appear that both drivers necessarily got their best runs in, but it certainly makes for jaw-dropping watching. Check it out by scrolling below.

Modified Trabant takes on Nissan GT-R in 1/4-mile battle

The little yellow guy in the right lane above with the "Flitzer" license plate looks like a Trabant 601 wagon and it's called a Trabant, but it's got little to do with the impoverished East German runabout that did its part to drive Communist ideals further into the ground. You'd almost be forgiven for not knowing there's a turbocharged 3.0-liter engine up front, until you have look at that rear track... and the wheelie bars in back.
So with a power-to-weight ratio akin to an LS9-powered scooter, it's no surprise that the Trabbi puts a pasting on a slightly tuned, 580-horsepower Nissan GT-R - we don't know what happened with Godzilla's shifting, but it was all over from the hole shot. It's still fun to watch, though, and you can do that in the video below.

Nissan Leaf ends 2013 with best sales month ever, but can't catch Chevy Volt

Nissan and Chevrolet both ended 2013 with solid sales figures for their plug-in vehicles, the first two that were released (all the way back at the end of 2010) from major automakers. As has been the story for most of 2013, December sales for the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt were roughly the same. When we left the year-to-date running tally at the end of November, the Volt was at 20,702, while the Leaf was at 20,080. As you can tell from the image above (if you've been noticing the trend in these EV sales monthly flash-reports), the Leaf outsold the Volt, but was it enough to put the Nissan on top for the year? In 2013, Nissan sold 22,610 Leafs, more than twice as many as in 2012. Almost. The Leaf made a valiant attempt, and did have its best month ever with 2,529 units sold. That means that for 2013, Nissan moved a total of 22,610 Leafs, more than twice as many as in 2012 (that year, Nissan sold only 9,819 Leafs in the US) and actually more than 2012 and 2011 Leaf sales combined (which was 19,493). Nissan continues to see the effects of its price drop and expanded sales areas, with Georgia rapidly becoming a Leaf hotbed. Nissan's Paige Presley said that Atlanta was once again the Leaf's number one market and that, "sales are expanding deeper into Georgia markets such as Macon and Columbus." The Volt saw a boost upwards from a November slump and sold 2,392 units in December. That puts the plug-in hybrid's annual total at 23,094, just down from the 23,461 sold in 2012. For all of 2013, though, the Volt outsold the Leaf by 484 vehicles. In a competition like this, we'll count that as a win for both sides. We will our more detailed monthly green car sales report, which covers more of the fuel efficient vehicles on the market, up soon. News Source: GM, Nissan Green Chevrolet Nissan Electric Hybrid PHEV ev sales hybrid sales