Nub Gives Car Away

Jennings Brown
Posted: November 20, 2008

Since launching Nub cigars on April 1, Nub creator and former Oliva Tobacco Co. sales representative Sam Leccia has been touring the country, promoting the new brand and giving out one-year supplies of cigars, trips to Nicaragua to tour the Oliva factory, and a custom BMW 2008 Mini Cooper S convertible.

Leccia chose to give away the Mini Cooper because he believes the car best represents the Nub brand. "We've got a short, fat cigar. It's something different; something unique. But it's a very serious cigar. We're talking about a well-cured, well-aged tobacco," said Leccia. "We needed to give something away that was unique."

The Mini seems to follow the Nub philosophy of offering more power in a smaller package. Although the car measures is a tidy 144 inches by 55 inches (that's just 12 feet long and 4 feet 7 inches wide) and weighs 2,500 pounds, it offers a supercharged 168-horsepower engine and the ability to go from 0 to 60 in seven seconds.

Each Nub cigar is 4 inches or shorter and has a ring gauge between 56 and 66. Despite their short sizes, Nubs can have just as much tobacco as some Churchills, Leccia says.

Nubs were created on the hypothesis that a cigar's "sweet spot" falls kicks in around 3 1/2 to 4 inches. Nub cigars are rolled at Tabacalera Oliva Tabolisa in Estelí, Nicaragua, a factory owned by Miami Lakes, Florida—based Oliva Cigar Co.

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