Behold the Dodge Nitro. NITRO EVERYBODY!!!
The strongest fact about this car to me, was the interest it got from people who saw it. Men, women, older, younger… They all asked me about it. I was at my Realtor’s office and when I walked in the receptionist immediately asked “Did you get a new car? What is that?” She was smitten. At a small get-together with friends, the tall, kilt-wearing friend wanted to know all about it, while the mom-rocker was asking for a rerun of my story. Everyone wanted to know about it, which I thought was really odd. I like the car, it’s unique-ish, but I just did not expect the level of interest from those around me.
My favorite part about this car was at the rear of the center console, facing the backseats, there was a true electrical plug. Not a cigarette lighter, but a two-prong plug-in. I can’t believe more manufacturers aren’t doing this, especially in the back seat where it’s likely there are laptops, DVD players, iPods, PSPs, etc, hard at work sucking down batteries. I can tell you in my travels, I’ve always wished for something like this.
Driving it was really nice. I’ve been driving a lot of large vehicles lately, and was thrilled to have a mid-sized SUV that was easy to get around the city in. Plenty of room in the back for the whomever, and a great slide-out rear platform in the cargo space that made loading it up much easier. The negatives of the drive? For some reason this car doesn’t have a left-foot block to set your foot on, which left that leg unsure of how to get comfortable. And the doorhandles are a weird grip-pull type that nobody expected, and everyone stared blankly at their door before I showed them how to open them. Most people didn’t like it either as you had to use your elbow to open instead of your arm.
Things to keep in mind are that this is not a car that offers the ’soft luxuries’ of a BMW or Mercedes-Benz. It’s a little rough inside, the seats aren’t that comfortable, lots of plastic, and it is not mahogany embedded in the dash. However, the dash and controls were very well designed (especially for a Dodge), and very pleasing to use.
All-in-all, people were pretty interested in this car and thought it looked really cool. It was fun to drive and offered a lot of character for $30,000. It would definitely be on my list of recommendations for an outdoorsy guy that had a little street cred insecurity. Good car, 4 stars.
