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Nobody sets out to build a collector car out of a Nissan Cube, which is exactly why this one is interesting. A 15k-mile 2013 Nissan Cube S is live on Bring a Trailer at no reserve, with a clean Carfax report, a clean California title and a high bid of $2,600 at the time of writing. The auction ends Friday, October 23, at 5:21 p.m. ET.
A Car That Never Asked to Be Saved
The Cube reached the U.S. for the 2009 model year with asymmetrical styling, a wrap-around-effect rear window and a swing-out tailgate hinged like a side door. It was a small, practical, deliberately odd commuter. Plenty of people loved the design, plenty of others never forgave it, and almost nobody who bought one new was thinking about the day it might be worth preserving. Nissan dropped it from the U.S. lineup after the 2014 model year.
That history is the whole point. Cars built to be used up generally are used up. They collect parking-lot dings, deferred maintenance and a few hundred thousand commutes. A Cube that has covered roughly 15,000 miles in 13 years is a car that somebody, somewhere, decided not to drive.
What the Listing Shows
This Cube S is finished in Gun Metallic over black cloth. Power comes from the 1.8-liter MR18DE four-cylinder, rated at 122 horsepower and 127 lb-ft of torque, sent to the front wheels through an Xtronic continuously variable transaxle. It rides on 15-inch steel wheels with silver covers, wrapped in Kumho Solus TA11 tires. Inside are the ripple-effect headliner, a CD stereo, cruise control and air conditioning, and nothing here suggests the car was ever anything other than a stock Cube.
The car spent most of its life registered in California. The selling dealer recently acquired it and is offering it in Arizona, and the seller notes an oil change was done in 2026. The Carfax report lists one owner, no accidents or damage and seven service records, with a last reported odometer reading of 14,886 miles.
So Why Would Anyone Collect It?
There is a fair argument that the answer is nostalgia. Anyone who was in high school or college when the Cube arrived may remember it as the car that looked like nothing else in the parking lot. There is also an argument from design: few mainstream cars of the era were willing to be this strange, and fewer survive in this condition.
Motorious has followed low-mileage Nissans before, from an 8k-mile 1989 300ZX time capsule to a 2k-mile 2009 GT-R. Those were sports cars, so their appeal explained itself. The Cube makes the harder case: that an ordinary car in extraordinary condition can still be worth a second look.
Small, odd and utilitarian Japanese vehicles have found their audience before, as with a no-reserve 1988 Honda Acty that moonlights as a traveling flower truck. Reputations also shift. Even the Pontiac Aztek, long a punchline, got the attention of a famous builder when Chip Foose took on the lowly Aztek.
The Question Worth Asking
Nobody can say where the bidding will land, and this article makes no prediction. The more useful question is what we choose to keep. If low-mile Cubes, Aztecs and minivans keep surviving while the sports cars get all the attention, the history of how people actually lived with cars gets a lot thinner. Maybe that argues for saving at least one of everything. Maybe it argues for simply enjoying the Cube as the cheerful oddball it always was.
Either way, it is a rare chance to see what a Cube looked like when the world still thought it was new. You can view the photos, video walkaround and the full Carfax report in the original Bring a Trailer listing, and watch the auction through Friday afternoon.
