The hefty hands continue their temporal twist around the fecund face of my Breitling, alighting with impudent earnestness upon a position that reminds me with perfectly vertical smirk that it is exactly 6am. Yet, to be stirred from slumbers at such an heinous hour is no hardship when there is hardcore helming to happen.
So it is that while sparrows are still taking a shit, shower and shave, I am stabbing the start symbol and getting ready to unleash the C-bomb. Yet my mission on this mottled midweek morn is not to drop a strident swear that would see me banned from the Beeb for the C I refer to is something altogether less offensive – crossover. Specifically, my steed for today’s all-out trot down the tip-top twisties of the East Midlands melting pot is the second manifestation of Nissan’s stunning selling seg-buster. Welcome to the qurious qase of the Qashqai in the morning.
First impressions are of a deft driving position and the quiet quality of the seductively slick shutline. Firing the four banger under the bulbous bonnet licks at your lugholes with a wondrous whisper for this particular Qash sups from a cup brimmed with unctuous unleaded. A scan of the spec sheet may have your brows burnished with concern at the seeming smallness of this petrol huffing lump yet its 1.2 litres are tickled by a turbo that immediately makes its presence plain. Add in a shifter as slick as a sweaty snail and the kid-carrying crossover can certainly shift.
Question is, how does she dance when Captain Corner comes on the intercom? Some persistent pedalling at a steady seven-tenths has already pointed up plantedness underpinned by a ride as firm as a Pasadena pilates queen’s posterior. Now it’s time to set the wick to twisty.
Almost immediately, the mid-sized Niss steps up like it’s been dissed, bringing poise to proceedings in a bag marked ‘party’. Maxing the attack into a searing set of switchbacks, the shocks soak up snags like a quartet of kinetic kitchen rolls and the serene steering guides the preened prow like an apex seeking sniffer dog. Coming in committed to an especially knotty kinkback I slide loafer from loud pedal and feel the trailing end get tricksy. I simply catch it with a dab of oppo and I’m away.
The Nissan Qashqai Acenta 1.2 DIG-T 115 is a bitch. And I spanked it.
Troy Queef is Executive Associate Editor-At-Large for DAB OF OPPO magazine
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