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"I'm a little surprised that you want this car in America," said Nissan's bemused senior vice president and chief creative officer, Shiro Nakamura. The worldly Nakamura made an international splash when he arrived from Isuzu in 1999, with vehicles like the artful Murano, the revived 350Z, and the FX45. But as anyone who has been to Japan (or seen Nissan's Pivo 2 concept) knows, there are hometown conveyances that just don't translate off the islands. "When we made the first Cube, we had no intention of selling it outside of Japan. We thought it was probably too different, too unique for American people. But we wanted to test it."