Remember When Nissan Sold A Rogue With A Bombastic Center-Exit Exhaust?

It seems like just about every car manufacturer now makes at least one sort of macho’d-up crossover with knobblier tires and extra trim over a regular one. From the Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness to the Honda Passport Trailsport, these machines are perfect for posing, a rolling billboard for active lifestyles. However, what if you want your mainstream crossover to do a different kind of posing? Well, set your time machine to 2010. This is the Nissan Rogue Krom, and it’s the sort of bonkers we’ll probably never see again.

I’m going to stick my neck out here and say that by the standards of the CUV segment at the time, the original Nissan Rogue was reasonably attractive. Sure, the Xtronic CVT doesn’t have the best reputation as far as transmissions go, but Nissan otherwise used its parts bin well. The Rogue’s platform was shared with the Sentra, its 170-horsepower 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine was shared with the Altima, it looked like a scaled-down Murano, and the result was a right-sized compact crossover with the right looks and the right efficiency to catch on.

Normally, that’s good enough to more-or-less rest on for a five-year model cycle, with a light facelift and some equipment shuffling somewhere in the middle. The thing is, Nissan couldn’t stop fiddling. For the 2010 model year, it rolled out something called the Rogue Krom, and it was pretty nuts.

Unlike the later Nissan Juke Nismo, the Rogue Krom offered no extra power, no sports suspension, and no crazy equipment like Recaro seats or a limited-slip differential. Instead, Nissan took a base-model Rogue, added steering wheel-mounted volume controls, then slapped on a body kit louder than the sound system at Madison Square Garden.

Up front, the Rogue Krom got an entirely new face. A chrome-bar upper grille and trapezoidal maw evoke shades of Suzuki XL-7, rather than Nissan’s corporate grille at the time. Also, check out those vertical air inlets outboard of the fog lights. How “Need For Speed: Carbon” is that?

Around the side, the Rogue Krom showed off a wickedly shiny set of 17-inch alloy wheels that, you guessed it, were chromed. Alright, so chrome wheels were already on the way out of the import scene by 2010, but Nissan might’ve actually hit the nail on the head here. The Rogue Krom is for posing, and chrome wheels play into that show-off archetype. Also, Nissan added privacy glass, and body-color mirror caps, to go with the three available colors of grey, red, and black.

However, the thing you’re all waiting to see is around back, and I’m not talking about the spoiler or the rear fascia with a ridiculous faux diffuser. I’m talking about the pièce de résistance, the center-exit twin-tip exhaust. Sure, it means you can’t fit a tow bar to a Rogue Krom, and it’ll probably suck to find a replacement should it rot out or suffer damage, but doesn’t it just look gloriously ridiculous?

At this point, you probably have several questions, starting with “Why Krom?” Well, according to Pat Steiner, director of Nissan North America’s Specialty Vehicles Group at the time, “Krom adds a level of style and appearance, along with a sense of intrigue, excitement and self-expression. The Krom name suggests ‘cars with attitude,’ rather than a literal interpretation of chrome wheels or trim.” Right.

Secondly, although the Rogue Krom was sold in America, it’s a rare sight for a reason other than style. Despite being equipped like a base model, it actually ended up more expensive than a better-equipped Rogue SL. At $24,060, you would’ve really had to love the look to give up features like a height-adjustable driver’s seat, a cargo light, a useful fold-flat front passenger seat, and a modern trip computer. It’s easy to forget just how miserly base models of 15 years ago were with features.

However, Nissan wouldn’t be deterred after just one year. Not only did the Rogue Krom go on for the 2011 model year with an upgrade to 18-inch alloy wheels, the Krom treatment also featured on the Cube through the 2014 model year, and on the Canadian-market Micra, although with substantially less verve. While the Cube Krom borrowed a body kit and brightwork from the JDM Cube Autech Rider, the Micra Krom really only added black alloy wheels and a bit of chrome trim.

Still, the concept of normal cars with mental factory-offered body kits just wasn’t meant to last, and with the Rogue Krom going off sale after 2011, Nissan’s brief adventure in giving regular crossovers center-exit exhausts was done. So, if you ever spot a first-generation Rogue with a wildly inappropriate body kit and exhaust, you might actually be looking at a rare bird rather than someone’s homebuilt special. How about that?

Top graphic images: Nissan; MTV

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