See all Motoring News
Here’s something with too many creases, that’s a bit edgy and difficult on the eye… and a car made out of origami, too.
Yes, that’s right, in case you’ve got glaucoma and haven’t already clocked it yet, the yellow ‘Nissan Juke’ in the picture all started with a blank piece of paper… and, er, sort of finished with one too.
This paper-folding party trick was carried out by artist Owen Gildersleeve, who built his ‘Origami Juke’ masterpiece to the very same dimensions as the real thing, which Nissan has helpfully put in the video to help remind you what it looks like. As if you didn’t know.
And to answer the obvious question of ‘why?’, it’s because the Juke is five years old already. In those 60 months since it stunned the world with its idiosyncratic mush, more than 700,000 of the buggers have been sold in Europe alone, so Nissan has every right to celebrate its success.
Origami, of course, originates from Nissan’s homeland of Japan (and not Sunderland in the UK, where the Juke is actually built), but creating this stationery (geddit?!) crossover was not the work of a minute for poor Owen; it actually took him 200 hours and saw 2,000 pieces of paper folded to end up with this sculpture.
He seems pretty happy about it, though, as he says: “This was a great project to work on – hard work but very rewarding. As a celebration piece it draws on so many influences, such as the origami focus inspired by Nissan’s Japanese roots. Using so many individual pieces of paper to create the overall structure also represents the thousands of people who helped bring the Nissan Juke into reality.”
So, presumably you want us to make some sort of (paper-)cutting remark here to close the article out… (We’re so sorry, the standard of jokes should be much better than this.)
Anyway, as October 24th-November 11th sees ‘World Origami Days’ celebrated across the planet, the timing of the Origami Juke’s reveal could not be more apt. So enjoy this video of Owen’s creasy travails.