Welcome to the month of March, which I have decided will be placed under the auspices of the 1960s – my favourite postwar decade. Even if you know nothing about classic Nissans in general and the Silvia in particular, it’s readily apparent that this is a special car. A special coupé, to be precise; Nissan’s first attempt at something truly exclusive.
When the Silvia coupé was unveiled at the 1964 Tokyo Motor Show, it probably elicited a double gasp from the public. The first was in relation to the car itself, especially its looks. Nissan had not really been known for their styling chops, up to that point – the Fairlady, whose chassis the new Silvia used, was hitherto the most novel-looking model in the range. The second gasp would have been at the ¥1.2m price tag, i.e. a little more than for a base Cedric.
There was something in the air on the JDM in the early ‘60s. Prince had fired the starter pistol with their Michelotti-designed Skyline Sports (top right), first seen at the 1960 Turin Motor Show. A few dozen were made, including a few cabriolets. Toyota answered with the Sport X show car (top left) in late 1961, but kept their powder dry for a more dramatic reveal. The next year, Hino were showing the Contessa 900 Sprint (bottom left, again by Michelotti); though widely admired, it was deemed uneconomical to manufacture. In 1963, Daihatsu partnered with Vignale and displayed a beautiful little roadster, followed by a coupé version (bottom right) in 1966. It almost went to the production stage, but Toyota nixed it when they took a controlling stake in their smaller rival.
One company that was itching to take part in this two-door race to the top was Yamaha. Their main stock-in-trade had originally been pianos and other musical instruments, but they started dipping a toe in automotive engineering as a result of manufacturing aircraft propellers during the war. Their first motorbike was launched in 1955 and the company was keen to try their hand at cars as well. In the early ‘60s, Yamaha approached Nissan to collaborate in developing the A550X concept – a snazzy 2-litre sports coupé with a DOHC engine.
The deal fell through in early 1964 and Yamaha took their business elsewhere (resulting in the Toyota 2000GT), but it’s clear that a lot of the work Nissan did on the styling was recycled in the Silvia in the short term. Longer term, the A550X’s influence was far more visible in the Fairlady Z. As the timeline suggests, the Silvia’s gestation period was concurrent with the A550X, but it was essentially a hand-built show car when it appeared at the 1964 Tokyo Motor Show.
There was even some flux as to the car’s name and specs: this early promotional leaflet calls it the Datsun Coupé 1500. By the time the first production cars were actually manufactured and sold in the spring of 1965, it had become the Nissan Silvia 1600.
The use of the Nissan name was quite a tell: this Silvia was going to be almost exclusively for domestic consumption. In those days, the Datsun marque reigned supreme and Nissan badges were only seen on very few models – essentially the Cedric, the President and a few trucks. Nissan were proud of the Silvia, but not foolhardy enough to try and market it in the US or Europe.
A few dozen did make it out of Japan. Most notably, a batch of around 50 cars were shipped off to Australia, where they retailed at about the same price as a Lotus Elan. But the overwhelming majority of the 584 Silvias produced between 1965 and 1968 remained JDM-bound.
No, there’s not digit missing in the above figure. Nissan made fewer than 600 of these and called it a day. Some say they called it before the end of calendar year 1965, as the majority (i.e. over 400) of Silvias were made prior to 1966. Manufacturing them was hard enough – they were really entirely hand-built, just like the Toyota 2000GT or contemporary Ferraris and Aston Martins – but selling them was an even harder task, in some ways.
After all, the Toyota 2000GT (which was a lot more expensive), the Mazda Cosmo and those other exotics usually boasted a highly sophisticated or powerful drivetrain. All the Silvia had was what the Fairlady offered at a much lower price: a 90hp (gross) twin carb 1.6 mated to a 4-speed (albeit fully synchromeshed, using Porsche patents) driving a leaf-sprung live axle. No DOHC, no fuel injection, no Wankel, no IRS – just a good old roadster chassis with 15-in. wheels and little else. It did have disc brakes up front at least.
The candy may not have been much to write home about, but the wrapper sure looked tasty. There is much brouhaha about the identification of the author of this design. Whenever the Silvia (and the Fairlady Z and the Toyota 2000GT) were mentioned in Western publications, the name of Albrecht von Goertz was always present. And while our Albrecht, who did design the BMW 507, effectively had a contract with Nissan in the ’60s, attributing anything to him alone would be not just a mistake, but an outright insult to the in-house design teams at Nissan and Toyota. The man that Japanese sources credit as the designer of the Silvia is Kazuo Kimura, who also did the first Sunny.
However, the role of Herr Goertz should not be completely erased from the story either. The German designer had been brought in at a time when Nissan’s design department was in a state of some flux, which can explain why the 410 Bluebird and 2nd generation Cerdic were penned by Pininfarina. One of Goertz’s main missions was to teach the Nissan design team about full-scale mock-ups, which was novel for Japanese carmakers did at the time. And while he was at it, Goertz did touch up the Silvia a bit, especially the C-pillar, which he made a little more upright and wider.
Given the shapely exterior, what was it like inside? I think the word “gorgeous” might just capture it. The overall feel is vaguely “bespoke Italian,” mirroring the body, and so quintessentially ‘60s one can almost hear a Vox Continental organ solo when looking at this picture.
As I understood it, the Silvia was sold as a two-seater. But clearly, if it had been made in Italy, they would have marketed it as a 2+2. A family car, even.
It seems a number of Silvias were simply given away to high-ranking Nissan folks. Better than a gold watch, isn’t it? It’s unclear who was supposed to buy these cars, pretty though they were. The Silvia’s real goal, like for the Toyota 2000GT, was to be a halo car. It showed the world, and especially the Japanese public, what Nissan could achieve if they put their mind to it. And what they could achieve was about as good as anything that came out of Italy or Britain at the time. It made enough of an impression that Nissan decided to re-use the nameplate when they resurrected the 4-cyl. bespoke coupé concept (sort of) in the mid-’70s.
Ten years earlier, Datsuns had a beam axle front end, a side-valve engine and looked like it had been styled by people who had only heard of what cars looked like, but had never actually seen one. From that to making the V8-powered President luxobarge and the sexy Silvia PLC in a decade, the learning curve was steep.
Related post:
Cohort Pic(k): 1964-68 Nissan Silvia CSP311 taken in the 1970s or 1980s, by Don Andreina
Japanese classics are another of my weaknesses.
The Mitsubishi Colt from the 70s was my favorite.
Though attractive, this car looks too pinched to me, as if it was a short-wheelbase two-seater variant of a longer car, like the AMC AMX or Panhard 24 CT or – dare I say it – Chrysler’s TC by Maserati compared to the LeBaron. I’m quite surprised there is some semblance of a rear seat in this thing, though it seems your head would be up against the rear window. I think it would look better with about 5 inches spliced into the space between the doors and rear wheels, and the rear side quarter windows stretched a like amount. Something to mechanically distinguish it would have also helped its sales prospects.
It’s gorgeous from stem to stern. The Jensen Intercepter face, graceful Mazda Cosmo-esque roofline, and tasteful rear combine to great effect.
My CSP311 is currently on exhibit at the Savoy Auto Museum in Cartersville, Georgia as part Japanese car exhibit. It’s great museum if you’re ever in the area.
The last photo in particular reminds me of a Lancia Fulvia coupe, which is a favourite of mine.
The very broad overall proportions are similar to the second and third generation Mercedes SL-Class. A more upright, formal Benz-like C-Pillar, would have made the design more elegant. The semi-fastback GM-like C-Pillar employed looks weaker, because it appears truncated, and too short horizontally. Some details appear Corvair-like. Overall missed opportunities, for a more attractive design.