Weird and ugly, CrossCabriolet is still in high demand

New York

THE taxonomy of the auto industry these days mostly breaks down to three branches: big, fast and green. A fourth class all but vanished in 2014: really weird vehicles.

That was the year Nissan scrapped its Murano CrossCabriolet, arguably the strangest car of the 21st century. The CrossCabriolet was a vehicular chimera, mashing up the body of an SUV with the ragtop of a convertible sports car. It was big, heavy and high off the ground, but had less cargo space than a Volkswagen Beetle. It looked plenty sporty with only two doors, but came with a continuously variable transmission, tended to vibrate at speed and cornered like a bucket of sand on a skateboard.