An Unironic Review Of The Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet, The World’s Weirdest Convertible

The Nissan Murano Crosscabriolet has been a joke in car-enthusiast circles since the oddly-shaped convertible crossover SUV debuted for the 2011 model-year. It wasn’t just the awkward styling, it was the huge doors, the bad rear visibility, the insane curb weight, the Continuously Variable Transmission, the cowl shake, and the price tag. There were so many reasons to hate the Nissan Murano Crosscabriolet, which is why, when The Autopian bought our 100,000 mile Merlot model as part of our partnership with Xpel, I wasn’t expecting to fall so hard in love. And yet, here we are, with me typing out these words in a headline: “…the Nissan Murano Crosscabriolet Is Such An Excellent Car…” Here, allow me to explain.

Recently I thought I’d pay Autopian cofounder Beau Boeckmann back for allowing me to drive so many of his/Galpin’s cars of the years. — the American Bantam two-door wagon, the Berkley two-stroke convertible, the Shelby Series 1, the Vector M12, his Porsche 911, a Ford GT, the Porsche 969 Turbo, and on and on. Beau has been generous enough to throw me the keys to some of the finest automobiles in history, so I figured I’d return the favor. Enter our 2014 Nissan Murano Crosscabriolet.

“It’s so awkward!” Beau exclaimed when I showed him the car after building it up in much the same way I did in the previous paragraph. At first, I thought he did a great job hiding his disappointment, but then it became obvious that he was at the very least intrigued. A prolific owner of microcars, Beau isn’t just into cool supercars and hotrods — he appreciates weird.

So we hopped in, and I gave Beau the honor of dropping the top for possibly the final time in the car’s 10 year, 100,000 mile life.

I say this because the Nissan Murano Crosscabriolet has a chronic roof issue, and I mean chronic. It’s to the point where, if you have a Crosscabriolet with a functioning power roof, you’re on borrowed time. And if you think there’s an easy fix: There isn’t. There’s some kind of computer module that fails, and when it fails in the down position getting the roof back open is borderline impossible. We’ll write a deep-dive on this whole problem, because it’s absurd, but suffice it to say: Beau’s dropping of our Crosscab’s top was one of the last times that’s going to happen for our mighty Merlot steed.

It wasn’t pretty. With the press of the button the windows dropped, the trunk lid flipped back to open a trunk ready to swallow its fabric meal, and then the roof shot up, folding smoothly until….

…it just stopped. The Crosscab was stuck in this configuration:

“Go ahead and hold [the button] again,” I told Beau. The top then started shuttering as it struggled to lower. It dropped a bit, then stopped, then dropped a bit, then stopped; Beau bravely held the switch, forcing that epileptic top into submission. It finally tucked away into its hole aft of the rear seats, but then…

Everything stopped. The lid for the roof was stuck, hovering up above the rear of the Crosscab like some kind of wacky boy-racer wing. Beau hit the switch to move the roof up, then he sent it back down:

Eventually the roof-lid came forward and down to cover the fabric, but one of the roof’s plastic trim pieces kept getting jammed, so I had to risk my phalanges to tuck it in so we could, finally — after an absolute shitshow of a roof-lowering operation – drive this machine.

Of course, as soon as the roof was down, the skies opened up. Between this and the top-lowering nightmare, I thought for sure Beau would think he got a raw deal here. How was this a fair exchange for him letting me driving a Lotus Emira? And yet, Beau seemed to enjoy it!:

Here’s Beau putting his foot to the floor, letting that mighty 265 horsepower VQ engine roar a nearly 5,000 pound SUV to 60 mph in probably around 8 seconds. It’s not quick.

And to be honest, it’s not nimble. Nor does it sound particularly great. In fact, when I told Beau to “hit it” when we drove through a tunnel, he instinctively hit the horn!

I thought Beau was nuts, but then he did hit the pedal, and I realized that, yeah, the horn was the more exciting of the two.

As Beau is admitting in the screenshot below, the Nissan Murano Crosscabriolet — which is basically a standard Murano with lots of underbody bracing to handle the floppiness of having lost its roof — is thoroughly floaty. I mean, turning the wheel back and forth yields body roll akin to a 1970s land yacht.

But it is comfortable! That is, unless it just keeps on raining. Then there’s nothing those overstuffed leather seats, that cushy suspension, or that highly-effective heater can do:

You may be wondering where the “excellent” part is going to come in; after all, I just said the Nissan Murano Crosscabriolet — a rare vehicle built in quantities of only 6,000 between 2011 and 2014 — has a wallowy ride, that its engine is completely unexciting, and that one of its main components fails with alarming regularity.

But hear me out here. In a way, the Nissan Murano Crosscabriolet is the greatest vehicle of its kind, and while you may be thinking it’s the only vehicle of its kind, you should also be wondering why that is. Because a convertible crossover makes perfect sense.

So many of the best convertibles ever have involved a standard sedan platform having its roof chopped off and replaced with fabric. But the reality is that the sedan of yesteryear has been replaced with high-riding crossover SUVs; people don’t want to sit low anymore. So why not continue by lopping the roofs off of normal, everyday commuter cars? Why not offer something comfortable, reliable (sans top issue), relatively efficient, and practical, but with the ability to have the roof come off?

It seems car-tastes have shifted from small cars to SUVs, but the convertible concept has not kept up with the trend. Sure, you can buy a gas-guzzling Ford Bronco or Jeep Wrangler (to be sure, the Crosscabriolet scores similar MPG figures than the basic Broncos, though that’s partly because it’s older), but those are huge compromises. There’s a reason why people are buying unibody crossovers in such high quantities and not just body-on-frame off-roaders — they want comfort, efficiency, and practicality.

And the Murano offers all of those! There’s tons of rear-seat space, the ride is great, the reliability is the same as a regular Murano, parts availability is roughly the same as a regular Murano; it’s just a regular commuter crossover — something that we know people love, based on sales volumes — but with the ability for the roof to come off. It makes perfect sense, and it’s why I find the Crosscab to be a really appealing machine. It’s something the everyperson could happily drive daily; it’s comfy, it’s roomy; it’s safe; it’s easy.

I wouldn’t have spent $50 big-ones on a new one, of course, and now that they’re a decade old $10 grand is still a bit tough given the lack of modern infotainment, but the general concept is great, and I have to say that I really enjoy driving the thing. It turns out that a high-riding droptop that doesn’t break your back over expansion joints and that doesn’t ruin your bank account with each fillup actually does make sense. It’s just the styling and that price that make the Crosscab such a hard sell, but both are aging like a fine wine. Pretty soon, at whatever ironic car-show that ends with “wood,” the Crosscab will reign supreme. It sure rained supreme when Beau and I drove it.