In his post on the Nissan Pao, CC Founder and Editor Paul Niedermeyer called it “Retro done right.” It’s about the most succinct way to put it. There are so many retro cars that look all kinds of weird or just plain ridiculous, but every once in a while, retro works. The Toyota Origin or the Mitsuoka Rock Star come to mind. But the Pao is even more important in automotive history, as it was a key part of the movement that re-launched retro, yet it was an entirely original design.
As luck would have it, there are still plenty of Paos about in Japan, as you may know if you are a regular reader of my recurring Singles Outtakes posts. My issue was to find one that was both original and decent: I have seen a few rotting ones, which is uncharacteristic of JDM finds, but seems to affect Paos more than others. As it turns out, I ended up with three candidate cars. So I’m going to mix all three, even if one seems to be a different colour from the other two.
I say “seem” because two of the four colours used on Paos, namely olive-gray and blue-gray, are somewhat similar, depending on lighting and the condition of the car. One car looks (to me) aqua blue and the other green(ish), and the third kinda looks between the two. The other colours were “ivory” (really more of a light beige) and “terracotta,” a deep orange-red. I have seen a couple of ivory cars, but never the fourth sort. Blue seems to have been the most popular choice by a large margin.
Retro automotive styling went through a first American wave in the ‘60s and especially the ‘70s, leading to a proliferation of upright chrome grilles, imitation convertible tops, wire wheels and stand-up hood ornaments on American cars – as well as some copycat designs from elsewhere. And there were a lot of ‘30s-inspired replicas, such as the Excalibur SS, Stutz and a wide variety of kit cars as well, as we saw was the Gazelle SSK recently.
By the mid-‘80s though, the source for retro inspiration started to shift from the prewar era to the ‘50s, as the Boomer generation started calling the shots and designing the cars. And thus began the second retro wave, which in Japan especially, has not yet really died down. Of course, nowadays some of the references are more ‘70s/’80s, but it can all be traced back to Nissan’s famous “Pike Cars,” of which our Pao is one.
It all started with the Be-1 (bottom left) in 1987. Nissan hired an outside designer, Naoki Sakai (born in 1947) to devise a new kind of city car – one that completely favoured form over function. Based on the Nissan March (K10), the Be-1 was built in limited numbers and with a high degree of care by one of Nissan’s top subcontractors. It therefore sold extremely well and encouraged both Nissan and Sakai to imagine more cars using the same method. Thus came the Pao (top right, in the famous terracotta hue) in 1989, the Pulsar-based S-Cargo (bottom right) in 1989-90 and the Figaro (top left; 1991-92). The Figaro was not designed by Sakai, though.
The Pao was based on the K10 March and inherited its 51hp OHC 1-litre engine, also used on the Be-1. Nobody ever accused the March of being fast (or even fun to drive), but at least the March and its Pike derivatives are pretty light. Only the Figaro received the 76hp turbo engine. On the other hand, the sole transmission mated to that turbo was a 3-speed auto.
At least, with the Pao (and the Be-1), you had a choice of slush or stick. Here, we have an interior with the aforementioned automatic. Let us also take a minute to gawk in sheer unadulterated awe at this superb dash design, that delicious cream-coloured switchgear, the big ‘50s-style circular gauge cluster…
And here’s the manual version, with a 5-speed that is certainly the far superior choice, given the size of the engine. Gawk again at that cabin before we move back to the exterior.
Aside from the colour and transmission, one of the option boxes one could tick when ordering these was the fabric roof – two of the three cars in this post have this desirable feature, once commonly seen on economy cars (think Citroën 2CV, Fiat 500 or Subaru 360). The two-piece tailgate, complete with exposed hinges top and bottom, is one of this car’s coolest quirks, in my view.
The Mitsuoka philosophy of torturing a March until it screams “Jag” is markedly different from the approach used on Nissan’s Pike cars. The Pao wasn’t made to look like any particular classic car, it merely borrowed a few clues here and there – the 2CV’s horizontally split windows, for instance – but it’s its own thing.
Thanks to being only sold domestically, the Pao was also able to avoid a host of regulatory headaches: no thick bumpers, no third brake light, etc. This helped keep a genuine retro feel. I mean, just look at those “bumpers,” they’re the thinnest ones seen on a city car since the original Renault 4 – another classic beloved of the Japanese public that inspired some aspects of the Pao’s design.
Just like the Be-1, the Pao was a certified hit and orders poured in as soon as sales started in January 1989. Production at Takeda Kogyo had kicked off a few months before, using an unusual mix of materials: the front wings were made of a some kind of polymer resin, the hood used a new type of fiberglass compound and the rest was made of a highly rust-resistant zinc-nickel coated steel. Retro by design, but quite modern in terms of engineering.
Nissan received over 50,000 orders for their sweet little Pao, but production ended in December 1989 at only a shade over 31,000. Selling the cars, which involved some overly elaborate scheme, took until February 1991. I don’t fully comprehend this mismatch between supply and demand, but it goes some way to account for the fact that none of the three Paos in this post have their original license plates, meaning they have great value as second- or third-hand cars – a rarity in Japan, especially for a city car.
Few of the retro designs that proliferated on the March in the wake of Nissan’s Pike cars were very good – including Nissan’s own blinged-up Marches, the various VdP Princess clones, Mitsuoka Viewts and the like – compared to the Pao’s clever cocktail of innovation and classic car cues.
Other carmakers’ usually questionable efforts on their cars, be they Japanese or otherwise, rarely rose to the Pao’s level, being either straight homages to past designs (e.g. Toyota Origin, VW New Beetle) or misguided attempts at jumping on the bandwagon (e.g. Subaru Casa Blanca, among many others). Retro just ain’t what it used to be. And what it used to be, when retro was cool, was the Nissan Pao.
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Who knew a Nissan March/Micra could be done so many ways these Pao either havent washed up here in significant numbers or have and have already met their final fates, Scargos are about and the Figaros are a fairly regular sighting but I cant recall seeing any Pao yet, Cute wee things and quite cleverly done, Micras were sold here new Marches land used and are all over the place good cheap little runabouts.Pao can only come in now as classics they are too old and lack the safety features to be regular used imports.
Never been much of a Nissan fan but there’s no denying their daring spirit in creating some some quite interesting JDM retro-mobiles that actually made production (although in limited numbers).
I do love the Pao and do appreciate its approach of going with a retro vibe over copying and updating an older design. It escapes the fate of the MINI Cooper, Fiat 500, Dodge Challenger, etc that look a bit like over inflated versions of their previous selves.
I suppose going with a known and successful old design offers some safety for the investment which mirrors Hollywood’s obsession with sequels rather than new material. So we get more Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and less risky but charming The Fifth Element movies. More MINI spin offs and less Paos.
It seems that here on the US East Coast, Figaros are the small, retro JDM cars of choice, though even those are mighty rare here. But this Spring I saw my first Pao (picture below).
I agree that the the Pao is “retro done right” – I found the car alluring, even though I’m not typically enthusiastic about retro themes or about small cars. And I definitely thought the rear is the Pao’s most interesting angle.
I’d never heard about the elaborate sales scheme that stretched sales out for over a year after production ended — I’d love to somehow find out how and why that happened.
I am a fan of the whole bunch but especially the Pao. If one was easy to get to and I could inspect it I would be a buyer of any color but the Pao would have to be a manual and without the sliding roof. The canvas roof on Pao, S-Cargo and Figaro has often degraded by this age and seems difficult to replace or repair so a slick top would be best.
Over the winter in Arizona I did see a Figaro at a Saturday cars ‘n coffee in downtown Scottsdale and an S-Cargo at the annual “concours” at Fountain Hills. Sadly I have yet to see a Pao in person.
Some Paos definitely made it to the US. There are several articles on Jalopnik chronicling former contributor Jason Torchinsky’s adventures with his Pao and he will probably continue on his new site The Autopian.
As an aside did a Pao ever appear in a TV show? The only Pike car I know saw airtime was a Figaro in the Doctor Who spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures as the older and presumably wiser Sarah Jane Smith’s transport in place of the MG she drove in the 70s. Since they were RHD the Pike cars were popular UK imports in the 2000s.
Whatever happened to Naoki Sakai? His designs were so brave, straddling the borderline between the ‘car as appliance’ aesthetic of the forties and fifties and the high style of the eighties and nineties, with a sort of retro-industrial look that was all his own. No wonder these were a hit. Wonder what would have happened if Nissan had made him head of design? On second thoughts, a Sakai Skyline? Maybe not…..
I’ve seen quite a few Escargots, sorry, S-Cargoes here, even saw two parked together in Geelong a few months ago, and I know there are Figaros around, but I haven’t seen a Pao. Which is a shame, because it’s my favourite. It’s a car I would buy and keep forever.
Never mind, I answered my own question. I keep forgetting I can Google stuff. He also designed the Rasheen, then seems to have gone into wider industrial design (cameras, mobile phones…) rather than staying with cars. No wonder Nissan design got boring in the later nineties.
This car may be retro but is doesn’t look like anything I saw years ago, so it harkens back to something I never was exposed to. The strange thing is that I like it. I wish Nissan gave us something like this instead of the Cube.
What’s wrong with Cube? It’s not retro, but it’s really cool and funky with it’s asymmetrical layout. In that sense a bit of the Pike spirit lives on in the Cube.
And it can actually trace it’s lineage to Pike. The fifth Pike car was an asymmetrical van named Chapeau (that looks like a cross between a DAF Kalmar postal van and a top hat!) that was presented in Tokyo car show 1989, but never made it to production. However, a decade later Nissan referenced to it with another concept car named Chappo, and this time it lead to a production model – the Cube.
I’ve just always thought that the styling of the Cube was better suited to a clothes washing machine than a a car. Nothing more.
You are right! And thats exactly what makes it so remarkable. Cars are usually designed to look dynamic, to have some sort of a sense of forward motion about their looks, while Cube is deliberately devoid of all that. It will be sitting next to a curb, looking as static as the microwave oven sitting on a kitchen benchtop. But in doing so, it’s uncompromising and bold. It doesn’t follow the industry standards and dogmas, it doesn’t look what a car is “supposed to look like”. It dares to differ, and I appreciate it for that. And it’s not fugly, it’s a well-executed piece of industrial design.
I’m especially amused by this electrified Cube presented in 2008 as concept car (called Denki Cube), it features hubcaps with a square motif. I think it’s trying to challenge the way we are used to thinking about stuff, but in an absurd way. A car with square wheels! Who said that a wheel needs to be round, anyway?
They don’t look so bad in a colour other than Appliance White. 🙂
That supply and demand issue was part of the whole Pike Factory concept. Check out the UK Figaro club website – they have uploaded some magazine scans from early 90s with Naoki Sakai interviews that will explain his ideas and concepts. I think there was another interview available on Water Design website as well.
All the Pike cars were highly desirable when new. A desire burns hotter when unfulfilled, says Sakai. By limiting supply, the desire gets stronger and stronger, amplifying and fueling the Pike craze that was happening in Japan in late 80s. Because of this, when Pike Factory would roll out the next new product then people would want it even more.
It’s was clever marketing, cute and clever looks, reliable and solid running gear, plus recognising the emerging Showa nostalgia in the Japanese society and skillfully tapping into those sentiments that turned the Pike cars into such a huge success. Quite obviously, Showa nostalgia also plays a big part in why Studio Ghibli was so popular in late 80s and throughout 90s. I think some aspects of those movies have a lot in common with Sakai’s retro cars.
Pike Factory typically used a lottery system to determine who of all those people flocking for these cars would get a change to actually buy one. Figaro, the last Pike car to see production was initially announced with a production run of 8000 but it was later raised to 20 000 due to huge demand – reportedly there were 210 000 interested buyers taking part in the draw!
Just curious – where did you get that information about 31 000 Paos being built? I’ve only ever seen 50 000 mentioned, and Nissan’s own Heritage website states so as well.
Nissan’s Japanese website claims “over 30,000” http://nissan-heritage-collection.com/DETAIL/index.php?id=128&adobe_mc=MCMID%3D63009719603965892803301462839483177001%7CMCORGID%3D0BCEE1CE543D41F50A4C98A5%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1652240252
also, see the Nissan Pao Japanese-language Wikipedia page (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E7%94%A3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%91%E3%82%AA):
(Google translation): “…received orders for 51,657 units, which exceeded the Be-1, and the delivery time reached a maximum of one and a half years (total production volume was 31,321 units)”
Yeah, actually you are right, the Heritage page does say: “total production exceeded 30 thousand units”. I got it confused with this page: https://en.nissan.co.th/experience-nissan/whats-new/design/nissan-pike-cars.html
My bad. However, the point remains… both are official Nissan websites and one says 30 000 while the other says 50 000.
Checked the references in Wikipedia… There’s a link to GTR Registry website that has a full list of serial numbers and other data on every Pao produced, and the total number is 31 352. So it means that the 50 000 that is widely quoted across the web is actually incorrect.
This is the link:
https://gtr-registry.com/en-pk10-pao.php
Pretty cute, I remember the first one I ever saw in North Hollywood, Ca, owned by a junkyard that imported used Domestic Japanese engines .
-Nate
The Pao, and to me, the S-Cargo are two brilliant takes on a small vehicle with incredible personality. I’d love to have either in California, but a RHD, low powered, possibly unsafe car is a step too brave for this driver. If someone’s looking for a Terra Cotta one, as of 5/15/22, there’s on on Seattle Craigslist.
I think, with inarguable success, all car makers seem to be missing the obvious. Build a butched up version of what you already have. Subaru and Audi did this with the Outback and Allroad aeons ago and so few have gone in step. Mercedes (Sprinter 4×4) and Volvo, to some extent did it, but wouldn’t it be fantastic to see a more solid, jacked up, update on the Pao with knobby tires, white wheels, four doors (because: marketability) and the same styling?