The Nissan Urge Concept Was a Gaming-Inspired Three-Seater Elise Rival

The worlds of cars and video games have been intertwined since the dawn of gaming itself, but usually, it’s cars that influence gaming and not the other way around. On the occasions that the inverse does happen, it usually results in an ill-advised special edition like the clunkily titled Jeep Wrangler Call of Duty: MW3 Edition.

Every so often, though, as part of car companies’ endless endeavour to appeal to the yoof (most of whom can’t afford new cars), they’ll seek inspiration from video games and try to incorporate ideas from them into cars. This was taken to its logical conclusion by Nissan’s North American division in the mid-noughties, when it carried out an online survey of around 2,000 “young car and gaming enthusiasts” to find out exactly what they wanted out of a car. 

This could have led to the ultimate design-by-committee omnishambles, but the resulting concept, the Nissan Urge, was one of the highlights of the Detroit Auto Show in early 2006.

Bruce Campbell, then vice president of design at Nissan’s North American design studio, summed up what the company had found out with its research: “Not surprisingly, most of the young, primarily male, respondents to our survey said that they want a small, fun-to-drive sports car that can incorporate the technology products that they use on a daily basis, such as cell phones, MP3 players and game consoles.” So 2006, we know.

“We also learned that these young adults are highly social,” continued Campbell. “They’re looking for vehicles with the flexibility to take along a couple of friends. They also don’t want a car to dominate their social lives or budgets, so affordability is a definite issue.”

A small sports car the Urge definitely was. Its wheelbase was shared with the 350Z, but chopped-down overhangs meant it was 406mm shorter overall. Fun to drive it likely would have been, too: Nissan was targeting a 1,089kg kerbweight, aided by a central aluminium cage structure and plenty of other uses of the lightweight alloy throughout the car. This structure also improved safety, which Nissan said was important for the parents of the millennial teens this car was aimed at.

Nissan never said exactly what engine the Urge used, just that it was a “high-revving, small displacement engine.” Mounted up front, it was mated to a six-speed sequential manual gearbox, which sent all its power to the rear via modest 225-section Michelin tyres.

The Urge was designed from the get-go to be pared back, with semi-outboard wheel arches and windows into the engine bay and interior. Said interior was where the findings of Nissan’s survey really showed themselves, though.

At first glance, there are two seats, lightweight buckets trimmed in mesh and leather, but behind them, a retractable cover hid away a small third bucket seat for the friend the driver liked slightly less to stuff themselves into. It wasn’t just activated by a button, either – the driver used their mobile phone to open it up. Proper Star Trek stuff.

The steering wheel was said to be ‘F1-style’ (read: more square than round), but where the Urge really was a little ahead of its time was in providing a docking station for a mobile phone (as well as one for an iPod. Remember those?). This would not only allow for audio streaming, but for the phone to be used as a ‘smart key’ to start the car.

The Urge’s centrepiece, though, was the screen that dropped down from where the rear-view mirror would normally live. This was hooked up to a then brand new Xbox 360, and when in use, the car would serve as a giant racing sim, its actual controls becoming a controller for the game instead. Sounds great for Forza 3, but something like Skyrim might have been more of a challenge.

Clearly, the Urge was never intended for production, but hypothetically, Nissan was targeting a starting price of $20,000. That’s about $33,250, or about £25,750, in today’s money – not bad at all for a brand new sports car, but still vastly more than the sub-£1,000 rotboxes the average 18-year-old has to get by on. Then again, we’ve all seen the ‘wealthy American teen gets brand new car as birthday present’ trope in movies – maybe that’s the audience Nissan had in mind.

Even without the gaming focus, though, the Urge would have been an appealing thing – a lightweight, revvy, RWD drop-top sports car with space for at least 2.4 people is something most car enthusiasts can get behind, gamers or not. Alas, along with the likes of the IDx, Foria and MID-4, it’s just another concept to add to the pile of Nissan sports cars that might exist in a parallel universe cooler than ours.