I love the cute and capable Nissan Juke. It's small, it's got a turbocharged four-banger and all-wheel drive, and, if you fall on the right side of the love/hate styling, it's perfect for the city or places where the roads aren't always paved. My wife has one.

Nissan thinks there's more to be made of the Juke. In fact, it thinks the Juke would make the perfect winter runabout, a snowbeast for hunting yetis or racing across Antarctica. That's why it worked with American Track Truck to outfit a Juke Nismo RS with the Dominator Track System. The company builds what are, essentially, treads that replace the tires. Such an approach provides grip for days, a considerable amount of ground clearance and do-not-mess-with-me attitude.

It'd be easy to dismiss this as a joke, something a few engineers did after someone said, "You know what would be cool?" But the Juke Nismo "RSnow" has a real purpose: It's a support vehicle for an ice-driving academy in Lapland, Finland. The $28,000 base car needed only minor modifications to the front and rear fascia to accommodate the tracks, as well as some secretive "reprogramming" of the torque vectoring all-wheel drive system. Nissan estimates the unusual ride can hit 60 mph on snow, which makes it sound like a stupid amount of fun. If you're feeling inspired and have a spare 4x4 in the shed, you can buy the track mods for about $15,000 from American Track Truck.

No word on when or if this thing's coming stateside, but given that I live in Colorado, I am pushing Nissan to let me borrow one for a thorough review.