Streamlining a box is a difficult proposition, but with Nissan's diminutive little Cube, boxy is the point. On the Cube's home turf, trundling about with a 1.5-liter, 88-horsey miserbox in Japan's crowded city centers is par for the course. But giving it the block rockin' beats necessary to keep up on American interstates (much less German Autobahns) is proving difficult for the automaker.

Nissan hopes to keep an updated version of the aforementioned four-cylinder underhood, which means that serious aerodynamic and weight savings will need to be realized in order to deliver acceptable performance. The issue of excess poundage will likely be particularly hard to address in the U.S. market, where everything from America's love of power accessories and heft-adding options is legendary, to say nothing of needing to uprate the suspension componentry to cope with vast Yankee potroast potholes.

The Cube is set to be built on a reworked platform it will share with the Micra and Tiida, and it could be more expensive Stateside than in other markets (relative to its positioning elsewhere), likely slotting in between the Versa and Sentra.