It’s going to be a ‘90s week for the JDM contingent, folks. There were a lot of candidates to sift through, given that 30-ish-year-old domestic metal is naturally pretty prevalent, especially in places other than the tree-lined open-air car museum I frequent on Sundays. So I wanted to kick things off with something bland, because ‘90s, but potentially novel to some of you. Have I succeeded? We shall see what the Avenir holds.
It is not always easy to find one’s bearings through the dense fauna of models, nameplates and subspecies that populated Nissan’s domestic range in the ‘90s. The same could be said of Toyota, to be fair – it’s a goose and gander situation. I’m hearing “But it’s just a gen 1 Primera” from some corners, and there’s no denying that some markets, especially in Europe, got these under this appellation.
That would have been too obvious for Japanese customers, Nissan must have thought, so they called it something else here. Want to add some complexity to your lineup? Just isolate a body variant and tag it with a confusing French word (which means “future”) that nobody will be able to pronounce (there is no “V” and no “R” sound in Japanese), and presto! You’ve created the illusion of diversity. To give this its full effect, don’t forget to split the range between the more blue-collar van-type “Cargo” and the passenger-oriented “Wagon.”
Naturally, you should also add a heady mix of trim levels, pack options, engine choices (1.8 and 2-litre petrol; 2-litre Diesel) and an AWD variant to your wagon range, so that it can become as bewildering as possible. We’re talking 25 possible combinations at least – and not counting the 1.6 litre “van,” which had a far simpler three-trim-level lineup.
Oh and let’s not forget facelifts – there were two of them, as this model had quite a long production run. The original design appeared in May 1990 with a simple, slatted plastic grille. This was followed in January 1993 by the somewhat fussy, but not altogether horrible, face we see here.
Then, in the summer of 1995, the Avenir wagon got a far more extensive restyle, both front and back, to emulate the Subaru Legacy that was making a killing at the time. Nissan went as far as changing the D-pillar and hatch, as well as applying as much plastic cladding as was humanly possible to beef up the car’s appearance. They also gave it a new sub-denomination, calling these fancier models “Salut” – again with the unpronounceable French words. The Cargo version kept the old body, of course.
Our feature car is a “Si Limited” with manual transmission, which seems to indicate it has the 123hp 1.8 litre SR engine. Within the range, this was three of four rungs above Plain Jane. Which, in a range containing two dozen rungs, is not a lot. I guess this relative low-trim nature might have helped this particular car survive pretty much unscathed, as many of the higher-trim 2-litre cars were modded and boi-raced to an early demise.
What was the plan with the Avenir, then? Its original brief was to replace both the Skyline and the Bluebird van/wagon. So it was, but then the Skyline moved up a bit, causing the creation of the Stagea as the true “Skyline wagon” in all but name in the mid-‘90s. That didn’t mean the Avenir was now surplus to requirements: Nissan went ahead and created a second generation in 1998, though the van version was yet again spun off into its own nameplate, becoming known as the Expert.
That was Nissan in the ‘90s: when in doubt, go forth and multiply (the amount of nameplates and sub-models). No wonder the Renault people who started minding the store in 1999 spent the first five of so years killing off model names, be they recent or old, left and right. Godspeed Gloria/Cedric, sayonara Silvia, ciao Cefiro, au revoir R’nessa, so long Leopard, later Laurel, buh-bye Bluebird and so on… They also bid adieu to the Avenir, by the way: the second generation turned out to be the last, being allowed to pass away in 2005.
Some of y’all across the Pacific might also wonder why Nissan didn’t ship over a few of these over your way as the Infiniti G20 Wagon. I’m guessing that Nissan never bothered because North American station wagon sales were in free-fall in the early ‘90s. Blame SUVs.
For all the confusing marketing, positioning and branding that it underwent, the Avenir still sold fairly well: about 193k units in eight years was not a bad score, for a larger JDM wagon. The very capable underpinnings were widely recognized as its number one strength. One might add the styling, which is unremarkable, but not altogether unpleasant.
It wasn’t as popular as the Toyota Caldina or the Subaru Legacy, though. The muddled image was doubtless the main problem with it. These are now rather rare, unlike the aforementioned Toyota and Subaru, and finding an unmolested example in a dour-looking corner of north Tokyo makes it look like it’s a car still going through purgatory, certainly for the foreseeable Avenir…
Related posts:
COAL: 1993.5 Infiniti G20 – Ahead of Its Time?, by Jim Klein
COAL Capsule #1: 1991 Infiniti G20–The Infinitely Big First Lesson, by B3Quattro
COAL Capsule #14: 1996 Infiniti G20 5-Speed–The Circle Is Completed, by B3Quattro
COAL: 1997 Nissan Primera GT /Infiniti G20 – A Dark Horse Family Car, by B234R
This one seems to be channelling the style of the 1986 Opel Omega “A” with its simple bodysides and flush glazing. The rear lamp and windscreen echoes the last Opel Kadett estate.
Thanks for the background on this car. The only reason I know of the Avenir’s existence is because these pop up occasionally in the inventory of companies that sell JDM cars for rural postal carriers. So presumably, there are bunch of these roaming North America, though I’ve never seen one.
And a G20 wagon version sure would have been nice… wagon freefall or not.
The story is quite well-known that Nissan in Yokohama were having trouble naming this car, and the naming committee folk were in a clinic with an actual production model when the English manager of the Sunderland plant (who was being given a tour) came in unexpectedly and said “Now, what do Nissan ‘ave in ‘ere?” to which the committee exclaimed “Igirisu jin, arigato, we’ll use that!”
Avenir was just a deluxe Sentra, nothin special you got a bigger engine is all, I had a 93 Sentra wagon ex JDM and this is that car, mine had a 1500 engine 5 speed manual air steer pwr glass etc cloth seats it actually was this car with a different badge few of the electronic accessories worked but thats normal on JDM cars.
This body stayed in production for years it was also a Mazda at one point Mazda built van bodies for Nissan, Nissan supplied the wagon bodies to others, find some of those.
Are you positive, Bryce?
They never used the name “Sentra” for the JDM. And these wagons never had a 1.5, as far as i know: 1.8 or 2-litre, except the vans (1.6 litre). It’s a Primera, which is bigger than the Sentra/Sunny (which did not have a wagon variant at the time).
Bryce will be meaning the Y10 series Nissan AD/Wingroad wagon, which was sold new in NZ with Sentra badges. Bizarrely, the Y11 AD/Wingroad was sold here with Pulsar badges (I had one for work, brilliant little thing).
The Y10 was sold as a Mazda Familia wagon (Mazda version not sold here new, but plenty turned up used) and in return the Mazda E-series/Bongo van (I had two of those for work) was sold as a Nissan Vanette.
Have one of these as a daily driver; badged as a Sentra; as Bryce says. They have a amazing capacity for cargo, so are very handy. Getting thin on the ground due to corrosion now days.
Hi Mark, is there any chance you’d able to post a picture of your car, especially the Sentra badging?
From a styling point of view, this is a car from the period when flatter panels and harder edges gave way to flatter panels with bigger radii. You get the boxy look of the older cars with a dash of roundness on the main transitions and graphics. It´s quite pleasing. The next step came with adding more fullness to the main surfaces and even bigger radii, a look just short of what people call organic. That style was not all that well received. I consider the style here a pleasing mix of linearity and roundness.
Are the above commenters correct, even the person that currently owns one? Everything I see shows the wheelbase of an Avenir to be that of a Primera (or Infiniti G20) at 100.4 inches, whereas the similar year Sentra is under 96, so about a 5″ difference which is not nothing. Yes the look is similar (as models from the same manufacturer tend to do), and the Sentra and Primera/G20 did overlap on some engines in some trims (again, not uncommon) but the Primera/G20 has always been at least a one step larger car than any Sentra.
It replaced the Bluebird, right? Which was larger than the Sentra as well as I recall.
Agreed. I’m not sure what the deal is exactly, as to me, Sentra = Sunny for all generations. Maybe these were marketed as a Sentra wagon in some Asia-Pacific markets, but that’s kinda weird.
The Y10 Nissan AD van/wagon and Sunny California of this era look like a 7/8th scale carbon copy of the Avenir, and yes in certain markets was sold as a Sentra wagon. No doubt that is what is being referenced in some of the comments.
In practice, the Primera took over for the old Violet/Auster line (in US terms, the ’80s Stanza). The Bluebird was slightly larger (and became the Altima in the US for 1993).
I thought this was a Wingroad/Tsubame (Sentra wagon) at first.
Fun fact: these were sold new in station-wagon-mad New Zealand in 1990/1, badged as the Avenir. 2.0 diesel, fairly low speceed and all in white I think. I remember our local rural-mail deliverer being one of the first purchasers in 1990 (as a car-mad teen then I was thrilled NZ got a JDM model new!). Plenty more JDM used import Avenirs have been and gone over the past 20 years too; still see the odd Salut around but they’re pretty endangered.