IN THIS FEATURE Got the urge? For Echo Boomers everywhere Real-life gaming machine A viable business case?

In the distant past, Nissan has done a couple of similar stark, Lotus-style concepts (the Saurus from the 1987 Tokyo Show and Duad, from Tokyo 1991, for those with long memories) but the US-designed Urge is a lot more real-world and many inside Nissan would love to do it.

Urge would also dovetail neatly with Nissan's move down into what's called the subcompact market in the US next year, with the 2007 Versa hatch and saloon, both 1.5-litre.

If the numbers add up, this could well make production

Ultimately, what will swing Nissan's decision on the Urge is whether there is a viable business case to build it. All new Nissans are now thought up and designed around a perceived target customer and under chief Carlos Ghosn, turning a profit on a new car is not an optional exercise, but essential. Ergo, if Nissan's number crunchers can't make the Urge stand up, as it were, then it won't get to play in the future. Simple as that.

For now, though, Urge (at one stage, there was talk of it becoming the Surge) absolutely rocks.