Here’s a new addition to my neighborhood. It’s none other than a mid-80s Nissan 200SX, and still in daily use? How did this happen? Is this car not on the radar of the Fast ‘n The Furious crowd? No funky graphics, no dubious upgrades; it’s just an honestly worn-out curbside find.
‘Functional beauty’, the words thrown my way by Google Translate when browsing Japanese sites of the model. I rarely quote such translations, as the translator always seems about 20% off when it comes to Japanese. But the words did seem to apply to the 200SX –aka Silvia in its native Japan.
After all, the whole Nissan lineup was going through a severe period of ‘rational’ styling back then, with the company’s design staff developing a fierce fondness for T-square rulers. As Peter Wilding mentioned last week, Nissan has something of a knack for wild mood swings, and the Silvia 200 SX had gone through them all. From a lusty specialty model in the 60s built in modest numbers, to the most outré Nissan offering of the 70s. A truly unforgettable car.
The mid-70s Silvia was a curious mix of Mopar styling with Kabuki theater mask detailing, that somehow looked like a rejected prop from Star Wars. Add a couple of wings, and the ’77 Silvia could have been mistaken for Darth Vader’s favored ride.
In any case, that mid-70s outré period didn’t do much for Nissan’s fortunes. From then, the company briefly reprieved to their earlier 510’s styling across its lineup, and by the early ’80s, took on a ‘rational’ approach inspired by the clean aerodynamic work spearheaded by the likes of Giugiaro in the ’70s.
The ’83-’89 200SX was certainly part of that wave, and don’t be fooled by its blunt wedge appearance. Regardless of its many straight-line edges, the surfaces were flush and the shape clean. On wind tests, the car scored a low 0.34 Cd. Pretty good for the time.
As known, most of the Japanese industry adopted that functional philosophy, and it suited them well. After all, the shapes created by that approach felt like an extension of origami. A mix of geometric shapes, in search of a harmonious whole.
And if you talk about geometry, Nissan took readily to it; something the 200SX shows in spades.
Wait, I’m starting to sound too excited about this period… In all honesty, I was never that fond of Nissan’s cubist phase. But time heals old wounds, or at least, gets us used to them. And in this age of tall CUVs with overwrought detailing, I found the simplicity of this old 200SX refreshing and appealing.
Still, thinking of it as simple is a bit curious, as this was a specialty vehicle back then. In its original brief, a sporty and stylish car to lure young professionals to Nissan’s showrooms. Something it did fairly successfully, even if not quite able to match the pull of Celicas or CRXs.
But does this 200SX still look the part after all these years? Since she knew nothing about them, I asked my wife as we passed the car earlier today: “What does that car say to you?”
“I don’t know, is like a sports car, right? I like the headlights…”
Good work Nissan! Years later, your intentions still work with young professionals! Even with this sample carrying one drooping eye. Plus mismatched rims and mismatched rearview mirrors. Think what this beauty could do if properly sorted out!
Enough goofing around. The more I look at this old 200SX, the more I’m warming up to it. What’s to like? First, it’s a model that has faded from our streets, a trait I always find enticing. Plus it’s a RWD model, easy to fix up to one’s preference, in a platform that was well regarded at the time.
For once, I give you an interior shot, taken just as neighbors looked at me wondering what in the world I was doing (be quick! be quick!). I see the interior ain’t too shabby, with most soft plastics still in place. A rarity around here.
Still, this model is about 30% too rough for me to bother with, which is good. Buying an old Nissan is not on my priority list, and this one’s condition will keep that situation from changing. However, I can certainly see the potential.
Just a few hours ago, as I entered my street, I saw the owner tinkering with the car’s engine. It was getting dark by then, but it looked like a fairly young guy. So, is this just a daily driver? Or a future custom job? Hard to say.
I prefer to keep my cars in stock condition, but knowing the fondness locals have for odd mods, I worry about this 200SX’s future. It does look like the car is going to be part of my neighborhood for a while, so I should be able to follow up on it. Time will tell if its current owner is fond of post-modern exuberance, or if he appreciates the 200SX’s original functional beauty.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1984 Nissan 200SX Turbo – Unused, Unloved, Unlocked
Cohort Sighting: Nissan 200SX – An S12 Gets Some Much Needed Love
A 1984 200 SX was my sister’s first new car. It replaced her 1978 Le Mans coupe and served her well for seven years. As a school teacher and soon-to-be mom she saw the need to replace it in 1991 with a Chevy Blazer. I don’t remember anything terribly bad or exceedingly good about the Nissan except she once had a minor fender bender and it was startling how expensive repairing the hide-away was.
Yep, these had the typical cheap performance car trajectory: First you saw them often being driven daily, then you saw them less often, but modified and being driven aggressively, then you didn’t see any at all.
I liked these. Nice styling inside and out, reliable, with good ergonomics. The back seat had limited legroom yet was somehow comfortable, with things like lots of padding in the armrest area and multiple cubby holes throughout. Full set of gauges, dash lighting in dark orange. Available true keyless entry, like Ford’s pushbutton system. One oddity was the bank of warning lights in a horizontal strip in front of the passenger rather than the driver. I recall some of them were moved to the driver’s side on later years of this generation. Maybe my favorite sports coupe of this sort.
My recollection (and maybe it’s wrong) was that these cars were sold in other markets with smaller engines that were deemed unsuitable for the USA. But by 1984 most of Nissan’s passenger cars were FWD so there really wasn’t a suitably large and powerful enough passenger car engine in the Nissan stable that was suitable for a RWD car.
The only engine in the Nissan stable that would fit and was powerful enough was the 2.0 liter I-4 from the 720 pickup truck. Perhaps it was modified slightly for the 200SX, but period reviews called the engine and transmission things like “truckish” and “agricultural” and “unsporty”. I never drove one, so I don’t know if that’s true.
The 200SX (Silvia) used the smaller CA family of Nissan engines (1.6 – 2.0 L), which was not used in the pickups, but only in passenger cars. The 720 used L and Z series engines, a physically larger engine family. The CA family of engines was used in both RWD and FWD cars.
The 200SX also was available with the 3.0 V6.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was thinking of the 240SX, not the 200SX.
When the market was fresh, exciting and new, Nissan set over that first generation and those 200SXs were just plain wierd looking. The competition offered much better looking cars and by the time Nissan replaced the ugly wierd looking 200SX, the momentum was gone. Had that second generation arrived first – Nissan would have had a real contender in the States. Unfortunately, Nissan styling when this market was hot – wasn’t hot.
Nissan had such nice looking cars until 1973, and at a time when we were discovering and accepting Japanese brands, Nissan was offering odd looking cars that you had to be pretty quirky to find appealing. The SX was just par for the Nissan course – strange looking car with strange looking jutting bumpers. Going to a Nissan showroom and seeing that car, along with the B-210, the F-10 and other uglies must have been unforgettable.
Yup – Nissan cleaned up with their redesign, but those ugly years really blew their chances to keep up with Nissan. I believe that these ugly cars were one of the reasons Honda started being considered as the Toyota alternative, instead of Nissan.
Think about this one youngsters: for a time Nissan offered this coupe in trunk and hatchback bodies… as did Toyota and the Celica… as did Ford and the Mustang. Plus you kinda had the Ford Probe and Mazda MX6 doing that.
The eighties were a weird time for Nissan. It’s like they knew they’d taken a wrong turn in the seventies, somewhere, and weren’t sure what they’d done wrong or where the way was to get back on track.
The only person I knew who had one of these (and his was the coupe) was a fifty-something business type – maybe not quite the hoped-for target market? There were precious few of them on the road; however as we’ve said before, Australia isn’t much of a coupe country.
To me these looked like a more conservative take on the Toyota Celica – same sharply-notched coupe, same fastback hatch, but with all the snazzy surfacing that gave the Celica its appeal dialled out, and a whole lot of fussy detailing and pinstriping added on . The kind of car that, if it was a girl, you could safely take home to meet your parents.
However, we can fix that….
Wow. It has been a long time since I recall having seen one of these. Stylistically, and while not unattractive, they don’t do a lot for me aesthetically. I actually prefer the preceding generation of hatchback. Lots of styling cliches here – pop-up headlights (a feature I admit I’m a sucker for), “high-tech”-look black taillight bezels, etc. These would have been a sensible choice for a college student, but I would have gone (and did go) for something older and lower-tech like a four-cylinder Mustang.
This was my sister’s first SX…my 2 youngest sisters owned a total of qty-4 200 or 240 SX’s between them (2 each); middle sister still has her ’97 coupe she bought new. Youngest sister bought first, a 1985 200 SX notchback coupe (all of them were notchbacks all automatics).
Of course, as only brother in the house I was the one who got to work on them when something went wrong. I bought the factory manual, which was great (better than my VW) including all the “blink” codes of the engine computer (it flashed them in Morse code style I forget which light on the dash). She left it at my house an I found a bunch of vacuum leaks. Also had headlight issue where one side didn’t light up…turned out to be a burnt contact in the headlight switch, which was unique and very expensive at the dealer; I found unused set of contacts and rewired it through those so she could pass inspection. I really liked her 200 SX (even better than the 240 SX of which my sisters owned qty-3), I guess I was a bit biased, my first car was a ’74 Datsun 710, I often thought the 200 SX was the sporty successor (after they stopped selling the coupe version of the 710 and made the sporty car a 200 or 240SX instead of just another body style of the same model).
Unfortunately, we often get hail this time of the year (spring) and the car got totalled after a storm in the early 90’s. Well, she took the money and bought a 91 240SX , which itself got totalled in a hail storm the same day, but 3 years later. Even more unfortunately, we lost my youngest sister to ovarian cancer at age 37, not many years later, also in the spring….bad things seemed to happen to her this time of year.
1983-89? You’ve just covered 3 generations of Silvia in one timeframe. Hahaa
That model you shown is the 1984-88 S12 Silvia(200sx).The V6 3.0 ftom the 300zx was only available in the US market on the SE harchback only.
You forgot to mention the squarer 1980-83 S110 Silvia/Gazelle/200sx with the quad-headlights. Owned 2…Both 1982s, one white the other silver.
1989 was the debut year for the S13 Silvia/240sx/180sx/200sx(In the UK)…1988 in Japan. Owned a 1990 white pignose hatchback, tuned for drifting with JDM parts, back in 2004, way before that stupid Tokyo Drift movie. Lmao
I currently own a 1987 S12 Nissan Datsun(One of the last Nissans to wear a Datsun badge in 1984…Along with the 300zx and Maxima). 200sx XE notchback coupe.
* Pictured with my 1983 AE72 rwd Toyota Corolla 2 door sedan.