Matthew DeBord/BI
Woof?
- The Rogue Dogue is a special one-off Nissan "Project Car."
- It was created for the car-show circuit to show off how a popular compact SUV could be modified for maximum canine pleasure.
- Nissan let us borrow it, and we tried it out on a real live dog.
Compact SUVs are crazy popular now - nearly 2.5 million have been sold this year - and one of the craziest popular of all is the Nissan Rogue.
The Rogue is the number-two bestselling company crossover in the US market, sandwiched between the Toyota RAV4 and the Honda CR-V. I've always liked the Rogue as a sort of semi-luxurious alternative to Toyota's and Honda's stalwarts, and my colleague Danielle Muoio is a big Rogueista (Rouger?).
At the New York Auto Show earlier this year, Nissan showed a concept called the "Rogue Dogue," a Rogue kitted out with a sort of dog-ue-y (Get it?) amenities. Back in April, I didn't own a dog. But thanks to the unrelenting pressure of my entire family, I now do. His name is Marco.
Here's what it was like to travel with him in the Rogue Dogue.