What is Nissan’s best-selling vehicle these days? Sentra? Altima? Wrong on both accounts. Car sales have been slumping industry-wide in favor of crossover utility vehicles and the top seller at Nissan is now the Rogue. And that model is now being joined by the new Rogue Sport.
2017 Nissan Rogue Sport/Images courtesy Nissan
The Rogue Sport is totally new for 2017 and is sized just under the Rogue model. It seats up to five and offers all of the latest Nissan amenities including the Nissan Intelligent Safety Shield that features forward emergency braking with pedestrian braking, lane departure prevention, and rear cross-traffic alert. It arrives in three trim levels – S, SV, and SL and is offered in front- or all-wheel drive formats. Dimensionally, the Rogue Sport is just over a foot shorter overall than big brother Rogue and is about half a foot lower in height.
Nissan Rogue (top) and Rogue Sport (bottom)
To be perfectly honest, we found little sport in the Rogue Sport, but this sort of moniker seems to be all the rage in the crossover world right now. Our tester arrived in AWD format and SL trim although it did not come with a copy of a window sticker. All new Rogue Sport models are powered by a 2.0-liter DOHC inline four-cylinder gas engine with direct injection that produces 141hp and 147 lb. ft. torque. This is mated to Nissan’s Xtronic CVT gearbox with Eco mode.
