(first posted 5/21/2014) This one had me stumped for, a while. I just didn’t remember this car being sold in the US; I thought the Pulsar moniker was used strictly for the coupe, like this one. I recognized it from its European use, where it was the basis of the ill-fated Arna, a joint venture with Alfa Romeo to combine the drive train and other parts of the Alfa Sud with this body. And I do remember well this car’s predecessor, the Datsun 310, which it very much resembles:
That’s the 310 on top (Nissan N10/Pulsar/Cherry); they were not that uncommon. But this Pulsar is of the next generation, the N12. Wikipedia mentions it being sold also as the Holden Astra in Australia and the Nissan Cherry in Europe. But no references to the US. All their pictures of it have foreign plates.
My very less than satisfactory Standard Catalog of Imported Cars makes no reference to it whatsoever, but then it doesn’t even acknowledge the Pulsar NX coupe’s existence either, so that’s useless. But…there is another section in wiki on the N12 under “Nissan Cherry”, which is what the Pulsar essentially was too. Finally, an answer: “In America only the notchback coupe (“Pulsar NX”) was offered for most of the N12’s run although the 3- and 5-doors were sold in 1983 only.” That explains it. It had pretty much fallen into the recycle bin of my memory banks, but I remember it now! Sure…
What I do know is that this was a pretty challenging and confusing era for Nissan, coming right in the midst of their transition from Datsun to Nissan. And like many of the cars of that era, it carries both Datsun and Nissan names. And the brand new FWD Sentra arrived in 1983.
So selling two FWD small cars with different names was…pretty much par for the course during Nissan’s difficult era, when they pissed away their once very powerful position in the US and watched it dribble away to Honda and Toyota.
I’d never known they sold these here, either. Most of what I heard of ARNA came from one or more CAR featurettes — either the worst cars of all time or the worst Alfas; perhaps both. Inevitably, they gave the cars both barrels.
Top Gear hated the Arna. There’s a clip on YouTube of Clarkson mercy-killing one of them with explosives.
They really were hideous – Italian build quality with Nissan driving dynamics, the worst of both worlds.
Thanks, Paul! I’ve always wondered about this. I was born in the Midwest in ’80s, at a time when most Japanese cars were toast after about 5-7 years of heavy snows and salted roads. My folks’ ’80 Corona had terminal cancer by ’85, and it was rare to see anything built prior to ’83 or so when my automotive cognizance/obsession really began to take hold in the early ’90s. I’m positive I never saw one of these Pulsars on the road, but this is such a genericar that I could have easily overlooked it. The coupes were a relatively common site for a long time; it’s hard to imagine that Nissan actually made an even homlier-looking version of the Pulsar NX.
I feel your pain on the shortcomings of The Standard Catalog of Imported Cars. Been there done that. Malaise Japanese Econoboxes are pretty poorly documented, even in the information age. Until now, Wikipedia was my guess at whether this car was even sold here, but I couldn’t believe it until I saw it. And here we are, a one year wonder.
Also, could Nissans product line and marketing have been any more muddled in the ’80s. Ditching the Datsun badge for “The Name Is Nissan” did them no favors, and renaming all the car lines only confused matters even more. Nissan’s early ’80s models were boxy even by ’80s Japanese standards. The first Stanza and FWD Maxima were dorky, stubby-looking cars, and the Sentra was penalty box. Now, over 25 years later, after being a trailblazer in the U.S. market, Nissan is still a fairly distant third to Honda and Toyota.
still prefer the sportbak pulsars!
I remember reading that Nissan engineers referred to these as the ‘Smurf Hearse’. I’d love to read a head-to-head review with the Geo Storm Wagonback!
May as well include the car that Isuzu resembles as well – the Volvo 480ES
I remember if you take away the sports back style for the hatch for a minute my family almost buying one of those EXA brand new in 1988 when they put the 1.8 in it.Shame we didn’t go through with it otherwise it would have meant no more trips to the Italian Mechanic on a weekly basis to pick up the father after school and work when the Lancia always gave trouble which lead to us after reading a wheels reviews from March that year although we kids would have had to work out in turns given how useless the back seat is for a kid older than a teenager each week who gets to use the public transport system for schooling purposes.
The same window style was also used on 2-door versions of the 1st-generation Nissan Patfinder.
As well as the 1st-&-2nd-generation Toyota 4Runner, but much more frequently in the 1st-generation (most of the 2-generation was 4-door).
Was also rebadged by GM Holden Astra this little heap really got around. I remember these where my father worked they sold GM but had recently taken on a Datsun range real odd to see the two cars in the showroom.
There was one of these dumped in a paddock a mile from here. It stood there for about seven years, but last time I went past it had gone – to be replaced by a later model Pulsar in the same position also surrounded by weeds. Art installation? Go figure!
Circle of life…
Don’t see too many of these any more, or the N10 predecessor, but that is not surprising for cars around the 30 year old mark.
A quirk I doubt US readers would be surprised by is the Nissan-based Holden Astra was replaced by a Holden Nova that was a rebadged Corolla – that was probably a footnote in the NUMMI deal or something.
There would have been an overlap between the Astra and the T-car rwd Gemini which was followed for a short time (about 18 months) by the R-platform fwd Gemini that was also the Chevy/Geo Spectrum and Pontiac Sunburst.
Weird. Holden was chopping and changing the suppliers for their small cars so much in those days, I really felt sorry for the dealership mechanics. Meanwhile, Ford’s 323-based Lasers just kept selling and selling!
Nissan,Toyota before deciding it was time to return to what they knew best and going to one of their own companies Opel for a small car.These days the small cars Cruze and Barina excepted are once again European.Ford Australia did the right thing initially with the laser and now the focus.
I seem to remember, and don’t feel up to researching, that the Pulsar was a two seater; not unlike the MR2.
It was around this time I became a Nissan fan. In the late ’80’s a friend had a circa ’82 Maxima with the infamous female voice, “door is ajar”. But a sweet V6 that got me hooked. I had subsequently purchased 2 Max’s as a result and currently driving an Xterra.
(The Xterra has got to go though…way too rigid and I’m too old. I’ve got my eye on the new M37.)
Wow – I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those before. Its possible it wasn’t sold in Canada (our market information is really poor as its over shadowed by US info). Manages to be pretty homely for all angles.
What this is, is proof that Nissan went too far when they cleaned house after the F10 reached production. Whoever was left had just enough talent to fold a cardboard box and spraypaint it white.
I just had a look on Nissan’s USA parts cattalogue, and it looks to me like the hatch-back was produced at least through part of 1984.
Here’s a picture of my 84 I drove for several years, it was a great car! I got it for less than a $100.
It ran great, had a nice wide interior, great MPG.
The camshaft broke going down the Thruway once and it ran on 2 1/2 cylinders until I got to the next exit.
Oh man, I remember these things. There were a few sitting on the lot when my father traded in his POS ’79 Mustang for an ’84 Sentra with every option box checked but the automatic transmission. You could see these around that Northern California college town for years. Same with the weird notchback Pulsar sport coupes. Talk about a trip down memory lane.
Thanks for posting this. I was feeling nostalgic… the 1983 Nissan Pulsar Datsun was my very first car and I don’t have any pictures of it. It was a horrid goldish-tannish color, and I loved that car. It ran like a champ, heater blew hot, got incredible gas mileage, hauled all of my friends and hauled all of my junk. It belonged to my oldest sister, then my mother, then my other sister, then she sold it to me for $1 when she moved out. It’s where I learned to drive a stick shift, and subsequently where I taught all my friends to drive a stick. I was told that only a few hundred of these were ever made. My sister purchased the car from a dealer in California. I received it (and sold it for $375 at an Auto Auction) in Washington State in 1997.
I received a 1983 Nissan/Datsun Pulsar four door hatchback for a Christmas present from my Parents back in 1992. It had 42,500 ORIGINAL miles. Owned by a retired school teacher. Sky Blue with matching interior, 5 speed, am/fm with 4 speakers, crank windows, manual locks, NO a/c, which was unpleasant in the summer. I installed subwoofers in the trunk and custom Sony “Pull Out” cassette stereo. New Alpine speakers all round. Other than rust issues “rewelding” shock absober mounts and 4 clutches. That little carbeurated 4 cylinder had 300,000 miles when the FRAME broke. Sold it for scrap! Still ran great, lol. My ALL TIME favorite car, and at 45 I have had quite a few!!!
Amelia, the 1983 Pulsar was my first car too! I had no idea it was so rare until I saw this post. I had exactly the white model with cherry interior that’s pictured here. My dad purchased it new in 1983 in Chicago. Ten years later it became my first car, and I loved it. I could practically feel the road under my feet.
I haven’t seen one of these in about 20 years.
Folks bought a light blue one for my mom in 83 in metro Detroit. Sister got it in 89 and I got it in 93. Drove it through the latter part of high school and through 3 years of college. I remember it had 60 hp but it could haul since it was so light. In fact for fun I would park the front end into a street parking space and then get out of the car, lift the back end and swing it to the curb. After spinning out on the freeway with a light snow on the ground for a third time while a door was tied shut I ended up donating it and upgrading to an Escort.
I loved that car, but it was dangerously light. Also the locks seemed to freeze easily but maybe there was a quick fix for that. Still it worked like a charm under the hood. And in Detroit with plenty of snow and weather as well as salt. And it was rare but I do remember seeing a few now and then through the 80s. In the 90s less so and none at the end. I did see one about 10 years ago and got nostalgic…
What are those stubby little levers in the console, between the seat belt buckles?
I have to wonder why Nissan decided not to sell the 3 & 5-door in the US. It seems like it would have stood a good change at luring some buyers away from the Rabbit/Golf, Omni, Civic hatch, GLC/323 and Escort. Not to mention, I think it looks rather sharp for 1983, with its origami creases, where the Sentra was utilitarian to a fault.
But the fact that Nissan decided against doing so and put zero effort into adding greater feature content to either the Pulsar coupe or the Sentra, or imparting the models with any sportiness beyond some cynical styling efforts for the rest of the decade is telling. The Stanza similarly suffered from a lack of US market development. These cars may have been competitive, even ahead of the game, in the early ’80s, but by the 1987/1988, Honda’s wedge-shaped and technologically progressive cars, and Toyota’s more polished, feature-laden offerings drove the mainstream market away from Nissan.
The very late ’80s and early ’90s saw this change, with the company betting the farm on some very sleek, powerful and high quality cars, but it was too late by that point. Furthermore, they spent the rest of the decade largely re-skinning and ignoring those models.
It’s a real shame, though, as Nissan’s pre-Ghosn cars were always of superb quality in my experience and the company did deserve more attention than it got in the ’90s. But boxy, stripped-down and slow Stanzas and Sentras during the mid ’80s really screwed the company for a long time, with customers dismissing the brand as generic.
Little switches to open the rear flip out windows
I had a 310 hatchback, which was sold as a Pulsar in Canada. It was an ’81 that my mom bought used and gave to me in 1985. I kept it for 3 years. I took it in for a safety check in 1988 and the mechanic told me to get rid of it because it was rotting out underneath. At the time it had nearly 200,000 km and still ran pretty well, although in the last winter the carb iced up on me a few times. I bought an ’84 Cavalier which was in many ways a better car (more room, more power, quieter) and left the Datsun at my parents house. Within a year the mechanic’s words came true. I charged the battery and it fired right up, but a drive around the block told me all I needed to know about the car. My dad gave it to a friend as a parts car, and I’m sure the engine lived on far beyond the rest of the car.
Hi Paul, this vehicle sure is a classic.
I had the opportunity to live in Melbourne, Australia from 2008 – 2010 courtesy of my wife securing a scholarship to study in Australia.
During this time we were looking for a vehicle so asked a couple of people that we knew to assist us. We lived in Maidstone which is in West Melbourne and our neighbor one day informed us that an elderly lady from St. Albans wanted to sell her vehicle. He said he would set up a meeting with a relative of hers who would drive the vehicle to our place for an inspection. On the day they brought the vehicle I was surprised at how old the vehicle was. The relative advised that it was a 1983 Nissan Pulsan 5 door hatch. I have never seen one before and did not think vehicles this old were still allowed on the road. After testing the vehicle my wife and I decided to purchase it.
This vehicle was amazing. It was in very good condition despite its age, it could speed on the Melbourne freeways, and was very economical. In fact, workmates of mine at Rod Laver Arena would leave their vehicles at home and hitch rides with me because of their fuel issues (probable caused by the GFC).
When we left Melbourne in January 2010 we had many requests from close friends and other interested buyers to purchase the vehicle but we decided to keep it and bring it back with us to Papua New Guinea. My wife eventually learned to drive using the Pulsar which was a big blessing and up until today it is still running perfectly.
Virgil Hani
Port Moresby City
Papua New Guinea
great catch, never new those exsisted. I think only of the later Pulsar. The first pic makes it look like kitbash between Dodge and Toyota……. The front end looks very Toyota Corrolla and the back is very Horizanish.
Has anyone figured out what those levers between the front seats do? Open heating ducts under the front seats, perhaps (remember when Toyota charged extra for those)?
Three years on, I think this is an incredible find. I wonder just how many were imported. The Pulsar continued in other markets and probably should’ve just been labeled Sentra for the US and augmented the line-up of poorly distinguished sedans.
If I remember correctly, on the two-door hatchback they open the flip-out rear side windows.
I have no idea what function they perform on the four-door hatchback, as I’m sure that the rear windows roll down on these.
Yes this^
My father bought a 79 510 and I remember looking though the Datsun full-line brochure thinking how cool those little levers were.
On the four-door, which didn’t have central locking, the levers locked and unlocked each rear door so you didn’t have to walk or reach to the other side of the car to do so. But you still had to for the front passenger door lock if you were driving alone. On the two-door hatchback, these lever arced further backward and (as previously noted) opened and closed the swing-out rear side windows. The NX 2-door notchback had swing-out windows, but they weren’t remote controlled.
Another neat feature on the hatchbacks was a covered compartment above each rear strut tower, between the side window and the rear seatback/cargo cover. Rear seat passengers could reach them over their outboard shoulder, and they could be reached from the hatch door too.
The Pulsar hatchbacks were a mid-1983 addition – the NX notchback was available earlier from fall ’82. Since they didn’t continue for ’84 (I don’t think), they were only offered for about a half year.
Having owned an N12 Pulsar coupe, it was always weird to me to see the dashboard in the hatchback models because they used a different instrument pod than the coupe. The rest of the dashboard was the same in all models.
Don’t know what those levers were for because they weren’t there in my coupe, although the rest of the “console” looks the same.
Weren’t these hatchbacks known as the “Langley” in other markets? And I don’t know why they would name any car after an early aviator.
The levers are for the rear door central locking. They’re cable operated, if I recall correctly. A frend had one of these, quite a funny feature, but I suppose it must’ve been cheaper at the time than using electric door motors!
That is nifty!
“Weren’t these hatchbacks known as the “Langley” in other markets?”
IIRC that was the JDM name for it. Seemed a weird name to me.
…the ‘Langley’? ..ah YES!! ..they were..! the CIA had used them as pursuit cars for a while..albeit not very successfully..however Nissan was so proud of this that they had to use the name..even though the ‘firm’ tried very hard to torpedo this.. however curiously the rust muncher did the job in double time ..funny that
Rare definitely but not completely forgotten I threw a pic of one onto the cohort some weeks ago caught from behind in traffic so theres still one going in the Bay.
…seem to recall they (1.3 litre) poked out all of 44 kilowatts …not a quick or exciting vehicle at all ..but that changed with the 12 valve 1.4 that came along at the end of the decade ..the 1.4 ‘multivalve’ so-called would rev right out and was quite a good performer for the time, until the 16 valve 1.6 Toyota came out and was the cheap small car star on the road
i did many enjoyable trips from Chch to the West Coast in the 1.4 ..the longer wheelbased 5 door hatch was much better on twisty roads than the shorter 3 door hatch which had twitchy handling that didn’t inspire fast cornering
Dragging out a distant memory of the Autocar road test the levers locked the rear doors, but I can’t imagine what practical purpose that served as any child would be able to reach them.
Yes, but they’d have to reach AWAY from the doors to do it, thus no trapped fingers.
The Sentra arrived in 1982 NOT 1983…
Get it right. Lol 🙂
They had a 4 door notchback sedan in Japan.
Then N12 Pulsar was a very common sight on Aussie roads in the 90’s-00’s. There was even a sedan version with fussy looking tail lights, called the Vector I believe. A neighbour on my street still drives a clean basic model N12 Pulsar.
“That’s the 310 on top (Nissan N10/Pulsar/Cherry); they were not that uncommon.”
Does that mean they were common?
If one service manual for the 1983-86 Pulsar mentions the 3-door and 5-door hatchback sedans as being produced (for the U.S. market) through the early part of the 1984 model year (August to October 1983) then I’d want proof in pictures of those two hatchback sedans.
I remember seeing these at the port. They were so slow sellers that some celebrated their birthdays there. However, they were well fit together and the people that bought them got a lot of trouble free miles out of them. Their 3 door cousins were sometimes called repulsars cause they were so ugly.
Sensational
I just purchased a 1983 4 door Pulsar with a hatchback.The only reason I BOUGHT it was I NEVER seen one before , and This one has 24K MILES. ITS IN AMAZING SHAPE AND IS A SOUTHERN CAR WITH NO RUST . i know its imported as the wax they sprayed under the hood is still there. I will post pics tomorrow , but it sure looks like the one in the pictures above including the red interior and white exterior..The pulsar logo sewn in the seats looks cool..Kind of hard to get used to the 3 speed trans with lock up convertor after driving overdrives forever..Mark
I used to own one of these back in 1995-1996. A 1983 Nissan Pulsar hatchback, and it looked exactly like that white one in the article.
I have never seen another one in the states. I should have held onto it, but I was 17, and I had no clue how rare it was.
I used to have one. It was a 82 or 83 and i bought it 1993 it ran great, good gas millage. I ran the hell out of that thing, it was my first car. bought it for $1,100.00 in Lancaster PA. unfortunately, the timing belt broke while I was in the highway and I bent some valves.
I had to put her down. It was a sad day.
I had one of these pulsar 5 doors back in 1988 or so, my second or third car. It was an 83 model. It was a fun little hatchback. Mine was blue and had a 4 or 5 speed manual. I had it for a few months and then traded up (or so I felt at the time) to a silver 83 nx turbo. My older sister ended up buying this pulsar 5 door and drove it for several years while the turbo went out on my nx and I couldn’t afford to fix it! LOL.
This was also my 2nd datsun. I had another somewhat rare datsun (at the time and now) an 81 or 82 datsun 310 GX. It had the funky curved hatch glass. It was fun to drive too. My older brother ended up with it and drove it for many years.
I have the opportunity to buy one for $800. It’s in great shape for its age and only has 65K miles. Do you all that have had one think it was a reliable car? I need it to get to work and back home, that’s all. The only issues I’ve seen are the clutch doesn’t release until your foot is almost all the way up, and the ac doesn’t blow cold. Otherwise it’s just cosmetic issues. The engine runs great, but I doubt it’s had a timing belt and water pump service, every part on the car appears to be original.
Any info you can give me on these cars would be appreciated. How reliable, parts availability, common faults, etc.
Thank you
When even Paul forgets it existed, that’s a rare car. Personally I don’t ever remember seeing one, but then again I would have been 3 years old when it was new, and as I was growing up it probably would have faded into the background as “another angular Japanese hatch”.
Nice to see that there are a handful still racking up the miles…
hi i have a 1984 nissan cherry turbo
Never had one of these but a much later N14 JOINED our family in 1992 and I later down the track ended up getting a later C11 Tiida.How on Earth did Australia get lumped with that name when Nissan in our country was pushing to keep the old Pulsar name intact.We knew of people who had cars like the ones above but later updated them.Sad to hear after all these years the Pulsar as hatches are soon to be no more in this country but the sedans will still be with us.
The reason, I suspect, of this Nissan disappearing, is because it was never noticeable to begin with. Every manufacturer in 1983 made a car that looked like this, except better – without the giant rubber bumpers. Nissan was known for ugly freaky-deaky styling that just didn’t fit the Omni/Rabbit/Civic/Tercel/Mitsubishi/Escort/Alliance look. This is because many of the cars were transitioning from RWD and longitudinal engines to FWD and horizontal engines.
So we see the first generation Tercel replaced by a square Tercel, A RWD Corolla, being replaced with an extremely square FWD Corolla, the end of the mildly refreshed second generation Civic, the newly launched MTCOTY Renault/AMC Alliance, the GM J Cars, and the Escort trying to become a sporty coupe after selling hundreds of thousands. We also see Mazda issue their second generation GLC, which also had this square FWD look.
So – as a rule – if it is a square shaped car, it has FWD and a horizontal engine and if it isn’t, it has RWD and a longitudinal engine layout. Very few manufacturers made this transition without have a year or two of both layouts and body styles in their showrooms.
This Nissan was nothing more than its parent attempt to get something to address the new square FWD cars and replace the ugly Datsun styling of the B-210 and the F-10 and the weird Japanese look that was suddenly unwanted.
No question but Datsun/Nissan designers were definitely looking at the Omnirison when they designed this.
The transitioning from Datsun to Nissan branding in the 1980s was reflected with the pickups as well, most dominantly on the tailgate. Here’s the rear view of the 1980-early ’83 Datsun 720, still retaining the tail light styling from the 620:
The styling began changing in the later half of ’83, with the tail lights moving up to the left & right of the tailgate (but the reverse lights still underneath) and the simultaneous use of Nissan AND Datsun badges.
From 1985 onward (in the US anyway), the branding was FULL Nissan with no Datsun badging in sight. The reverse lights moved up with the rest of the tail light functions, leaving reflectors in the spaces where they were before; the amber turn signals disappeared during the change but would come back in ’86 with the introduction of the D21 pickups (aka Hardbody). The bed was now of double-wall construction instead of single-wall with the exterior ropeties like on the earlier models. This is how I know the approximate model year range of the model my Nissan Trailer was built from.
Here’s the most recent view of the Nissan Trailer’s tailgate for comparison:
This is confusing, as people mention Datsun was becoming Nissan around this time (in the US), and I think they were also merging lines (specifically the Cherry and the Sunny). I used to be in a carpool where I worked where one of my co-workers drove a 1979 N10 model coupe (she called it “Florence”). I used to see N10 310 models and at the time I was driving a 1974 710 model and was really interested in the 310 for its Front Wheel Drive, which was just in transition to becoming default layout especially in Japanese cars, and it had option of 4 doors plus hatch (which is in fact what I drive today…but a VW). I don’t think we saw the N12 cars in the US except for the 2 door coupe (Nissan Pulsar) around 1983 or so…just at the time Datsun became Nissan. I think that eventually (1984?) they came out with the Nissan Sentra which I think was the Sunny model rather than the Cherry one, which was offered in the US as the Pulsar up through 1987 or so…then it disappeared, and we only saw the Sentra/Sunny models after that.
For me, the transition kind of happened at the wrong time…I had an accident with my 710 in early 1981 (slid on black ice on a trip to my parents up in Vermont) and it got me determined to get a front wheel drive car…I think on smaller cars FWD made a bigger difference than larger cars, but that of course was the time when gas prices/supply were in flux (thought to only go higher) and of course inflation was still high, so I know I wanted to buy a small car, but with better traction than my 710… I guess I could have bought a used N10 model from Nissan but instead I fell in love with a ’78 Scirocco (anc have continued to own only VWs to this day). I know I also considered a Dodge Omni /Plymouth Horizon (my Dad had an Omni), and also looked at a Subaru GL hatchback (looking back it looks like they offered it in 4 wheel drive, but my Dad had a 76 GL sedan that was Front Wheel drive only; Subaru still offered FWD models back then).
Funny thing is…my 2 younger sisters picked up the Nissan purchasing after I stopped …they both bought similar models, either 200sx or 240sx, and had 2 each (total of 4)…my youngest sister has since passed away, but the other younger sister still has her ’98 240SX…people keep wanting to buy from her (guess it is one of the last RWD Nissan models sold in the US). I like to think of the car as a decendant of my ’74 710, which offered a rarely seen coupe model, but in 1977 was sold as the original 200SX offered in the US…. I appreciate her 240SX, but the older me probably would prefer a Datsun 310 sedan, instead of the Nissan Pulsar or VW Scirocco I could enjoy at my younger age but don’t like the low ingress-egress now that I’m older (but not ready for a Panther body Ford quite yet).
I’ve always thought it was an attractive car as a youth I knew another teenager who owned an Australian assembled ET Turbo, I can’t reconcile my impression with the picture of that dowdy US car with bumpers that look like Nissan copied the tooling from its period pickup, US 5mph bumpers are the automotive equivalent of an ugly stick.
It was cool until shiploads of Mazda Familiar DOHC Turbos arrived in NZ.
So popular that they just were called DOHC, So when you mentioned DOHC in a conversation everybody assumed you were talking about fast 3 door hatch (or four door sedan) not about twin cams.
Then Skyline R32s became the it car for young adults for short while before everybody drunk the WRX Kool aid.
WRX’s have now become a ‘meh’ car, for clueless DC shoe wearing clowns or perhaps a beater for not so clueless but still a DC shoe wearing clown while he gets his RB25DET repowered Nissan Laurel diesel on the road.
With my last post I seemed to be able only to upload 1 photo.
Heres another photo, similar colour to the 86 car I knew, they seemed to have a factory tinted glass, black dashboards but grey cloth interiors with red piping from memory.
While common garden Pulsars were popular I also remember fancy special editions such as black with special alloys and decals inspired by the tv show Knight Rider.
My first new car. Loved it. So much fun to drive. Kept it for 17 years. One of the saddest days of my life
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Hi, I’m from Chile and I have a 5-door Pulsar N12 hatchback. 6 years ago I had the opportunity to buy it with 50k miles for 400 dollars. It’s an incredible car, I hope I never sell it, very easy to maintain and cheap mechanical parts, but I hope I never need body parts since they can’t be found. I don’t speak English, I just used the google translate. Greetings.
I bought a 1983 Pulsar 5-door around January of 1983 (at a dealership named Grubb -if I recall correctly) in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. It was dual-branded with both Datsun and Nissan chrome letters. Mine was black with red stripes and red interior.
Soon after, I purchased a black metal louver shade for the rear hatch window which helped keep the car MUCH cooler in the Texas heat and, I think, it also improved the car’s appearance.
About six years later, in another city, we called a dealership for minor maintenance but had to argue with them that this particular model even existed. When we dropped it off the entire sales and service team walked outside to gawk at this oddity.