Remembering Japanese cars from the past

Tag: nissan cherry (Page 1 of 2)

Down on the Street: Datsun Cherry E10 in office building!

This Datsun Cherry 100A E10 on a set of KN Jupiter rims just happened to be somewhere in the background of a Dutch news clip. It happened in a flash and I had to replay the video twice to confirm it was indeed a 100A Cherry E10. It took me 5 minutes to figure out where it actually was located…
Datsun Cherry E10 on KN Jupiter rims inside an office building
The news clip featured a meeting room sign with the name The Louis. I googled for it and came across a shared office building called B. Building in the south-west of Amsterdam that featured a bookable meeting room with that name.

On that very same site I also found some photos of the foyer featuring the Datsun 100A standing on top of the entrance. That’s actually the photo I featured above. There is actually a link with the Datsun: the building used to be the Nissan European headquarters in Amsterdam and was later used by the clothing brand MEXX as it’s headquarters.

I found a video from 2017 about the office building with a couple of shots featuring the Datsun Cherry:
Continue reading

Manga Car Spotting – Nissan Cherry X-1R and Honda N360 – Restore Garage 251

Manga Cars

A flying Nissan Cherry X-1R coupe and a rusty Honda N360 will feature in this fourth episode of spotting manga cars! I’ll read this Japanese manga of Restore Garage 251 and I found over 25 different cars in it!
Manga Car Spotting - Nissan Cherry X-1R and Honda N360 - Restore Garage 251

Restore Garage 251 by Ryuji Tsugihara

Restore Garage 251 revolves around Satomi Yumejiro and his grand son, who restore old Japanese cars. In each restoration there seems to be a background story: either some owner / ex-owner wishing to restore their lost love or some special car that is restored and given to a collector. The great thing about Restore Garage 251 is that it also focuses on the technique behind the restoration: how carburetors work, how a steering rack works and how you can mend metal into place. Definitely a manga that I would love to see translated and published in English!

You can find the video and the high resolution scans of the panels containing manga cars below: Continue reading

JDM Trivia #4: Nissan Sportsmatic

JDM Trivia number four: Nissan Sportsmatic

Nobody took a guess at last weeks teaser and maybe it was a bit too strange indeed. So the question was what is this device called and what does it do?
The device is the Nissan Sportsmatic that was featured in both the Nissan Cherry F10 and the Nissan Pulsar N10 coupe.
JDM Trivia #4: Nissan Sportsmatic
The sportsmatic for the F10 was a conventional autobox with torque converter, but the Sports-Matic in the picture is the version on the Pulsar N10. This gearbox is an automatic by Nissan that isn’t a slushmatic, but uses an electromagnetic clutch to engage and disengage the drive.

Engagement knob

The engagement knob for this automatic gearbox is a bit unconventional: shifting it up puts it in Drive, shifting it down puts it in low gearing, to the right is the Over Drive while Reverse is left up and Park left down. Continue reading

Picture of the Week: Dutch Datsun car dealer in 1977

I found this scanned newspaper photo of a showroom of the Dutch Datsun car dealer Rhenoy (in 1977) posted in japanseklassieker.nl Facebook group and immediately thought to share it here:
Dutch Datsun car dealer showroom
What I quickly spotted in this photo was (from top left clockwise):

  1. Datsun 160B / 180B / 200B coupe (aka Nissan Bluebird 810)
  2. Datsun 260Z (aka Nissan Fairlady Z S30)
  3. Datsun 200L coupe (aka Nissan Laurel C130, aka pigsbutt Laurel, aka butaketsu)
  4. Datsun 280C sedan (aka Nissan Gloria 330)
  5. Datsun 160B / 180B / 200B sedan (aka Nissan Bluebird 810)
  6. Datsun 100A (aka Nissan Cherry E10)
  7. Datsun 160J coupe (aka Nissan Bluebird 710, or plain 710)
  8. Datsun 100A F-II two door sedan (aka Nissan Cherry F-II F10)
  9. Datsun 100A F-II coupe (aka Nissan Cherry F-II F10)

Now the big question is where is the Datsun 120Y (aka Nissan Sunny B210) in this photo? Or did I guess the first car wrongly here?

In my opinion the most interesting cars at this Datsun car dealer are the first four cars. Styling wise the late 70s was when Nissan shifted from coke-bottle styling to ruler styling and that’s quite visible in this showroom. The all new 160B/180B/200B (Bluebird 810) just arrived and also shows the arrival of the ruler styling with its sharp lines. There is just one tiny coke-bottle hip left over at the rear quarter of the car. Even sharper lines and more angular design would arrive with the all new 1977 Datsun 200L (aka Nissan Laurel C230), 1977 Datsun 160J (aka Nissan Violet A10) and the 1978 Datsun Cherry (aka Nissan Pulsar N10).

If I had to pick one car from this Datsun car dealer showroom back in 1977 I probably would have taken the four door Datsun 180B sedan. Simply because of it practicality and fuel economy for as far as you could call it economical at all. However if I had to pick one today I would choose either the Datsun 200L coupe (I just love the word butaketsu!) or the Datsun 200B coupe.

WTF: Nissan Pulsar N11 Sports-matic gear shifter

I accidentally posted this as a blog post earlier this week while it was meant as a linkdump saved as a draft. Probably I pressed the publish button instead of draft…

Anyway, I had a bit WTF when I spotted the automatic gearshift lever in this picture:
WTF Nissan Pulsar N11
Taken from the brochure of the N11 Pulsar (aka the Datsun/Nissan Cherry here in Europe) and it states something about this being a Sports-matic mechanical auto gearbox with an electro magnetically operated clutch. You are supposed to put it in L for the first (low gear), then D for drive (up to 80km/h) as the second gear and OD (overdrive) for the top gear. Do you still get it? I don’t and that’s probably also the reason this ingenious gearshifter never made it past the N11 Pulsar. ;)

This is what the N11 Pulsar looks like as a coupe: Continue reading

DOTS: Fungilicious Nissan Cherry N12


Some time ago I was cycling around my hometown and passing some buildings with a huge fence around it and I took this picture:
What is that behind all that bokeh?
What is that behind all that bokeh?

Now what is hiding behind all that bokeh?

It is a fungilicious Sunny B11Cherry N12:
Nissan Cherry N12 covered in fungus!
Nissan Cherry N12 covered in fungus!

Now that was a nice surprise!

Nissan Cherry N12 covered in fungus!
Nissan Cherry N12 covered in fungus!

I had to climb all the way up here to take a picture of that car. From the road the car was hardly visible.

Nissan Cherry N12 covered in fungus!
Nissan Cherry N12 covered in fungus!

Apparently I was cycling on a road behind some wrecking yards and the one specialized in Mercedes Benz delivery vans did not really have the use for a Nissan Cherry N12 and just put it on top of a pile of rusty old vans. The car must have been there for ages now since it is gathering all this fungus… I hardly wish to know how much of that stuff is actually inside as well. :(

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