A wet uliginous rain hammers from the skies like a curtain of liquid spaghetti and batters the flat crucible of countryside just outside Corby. For a brief moment its damp, damning rhythm focuses the silence with its sound then all at once the bucolic calm is broken by something that comes not from nature but derives from the thunder of combustion.
A shape flashes across the flatlands, all at once furious and bovine yet taut and familiar. If the angry clouds could read they would strain to chase its fast moving fury and scan with hardening eyes the cluster of chrome that gathers upon its glistering rump, spelling out the handle of this hard charging hero car. Note. Don’t take Note, just know that this is the Nissan Note, a pert and preened family friend now enhanced by a bolstered and boosted tribute to Dr Diesel and his darkened arts.
Suffice to say, this engine pulls like Brad Pitt in a brothel, not rippling with power but letting the turbo do the torqueing. Its perky partner in crime is the gearchange, slick as a smarmy salesman soused with salad cream. But like Lennon without McCartney or Cannon without Ball this positive powertrain performance would be nothing without a classy chassis and here is where you should really take Note. The ride is flexible and friendly, like sleeping on your gym instructor, yet corners are taken with the enthusiasm of a new puppy on acid. Flick it in hard and the tail steps wide but I caught it with a flick of the old opp-lock and I was away.
The Nissan Note 1.5 dCi Tekna is a bitch. And I spanked it.
Troy Queef is Executive Associate Editor-at-large for DAB OF OPPO magazine
