It is proving to be harder than I ever imagined to find great curbside classics in Japan. I’ve thought a lot about the reasons why and the only reasonable explanation I can think of is that the average Japanese person is pretty much limited by space and expense to a single vehicle. That means that most folks are going to choose something practical and modern, so it seems to me that it must take a pretty special person to drive something old in this country. Thankfully, I was finally able to find something that proves there are at least a few of these special people around.
The first Nissan Sunny hit the streets way back in 1966 as a direct competitor to Toyota’s brand-new small car, the Corolla. Originally, it was offered in two versions, a two door coupe and a van/station wagon and came in both “Standard” and “Deluxe” trims. It was powered by a 988cc 4 cylinder engine and backed by a 4 speed manual transmission.
Over time, Nissan – which literally means “Made in Japan” – expanded the line and in 1967 introduced a small commercial truck based on the Sunny 110 chassis. Originally, it was a simple, commercial utility vehicle with few options but, as the line was incrementally improved over the years, so too was the truck. The version I found on the street today is a “GB120” long-bed, which was introduced in 1971 and built without major changes until the 1978 model year.
Despite their obvious appeal and the fact the passenger version of these cars were sold stateside as the Datsun 1200, these little trucks were not exported to the United States because of the infamous “chicken tax,” a 25% tariff on potato starch, dextrin, brandy, and light trucks imposed in 1963 by the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson. Looking at it now, I feel like we missed out.
As classic cars go, these little trucks still have their fair share of fans here and I have spotted several since my arrival some months ago. Today was the first time I’ve been able to photo one, but it seems to be a good representative of the type. Careful observers will note its rough condition, including several dents and a diamond plate work box in the bed, that indicates this truck is still a working classic rather than a pristine garage queen. Frankly, I like that and, hopefully, you do too.
That’s all for now, but I’ will be back as soon as possible with another interesting vehicle from the Western side of the Pacific – just don’t hold your breath for anything really old. Wish me luck!
Interesting variation on rear bumper. Instead of trying to protect from collisions, just give the tailgate a bang-stop and protect the taillights from loading docks.
They sold well in Australia until 1984, and were built and sold in South Africa, firstly as the Datsun 1200, and then as the Nissan 1400 bakkie, as utes and pick-ups are called in South Africa, until 2008.
Killer find Thomas! I agree, we here in the states missed out. For those of us that thought the Datsun pickup was too big! LOL That is a cute rig, I like it. But I also liked the B-210 too.
That looks like the truck Goose was driving in Mad Max when Johnny the Boy and Toecutter set him on fire.
No, that was a 1963-ish Holden
I remember seeing small trucks without rear bumpers back then. Were rear bumpers an option on some small trucks?
Curious as to what the small white van is in the first photo.
It’s an NV100 Nissan Clipper which Wikipedia tells me is a badge engineered 660cc Kei Truck actually produced by Mitsubishi.
It’s nice to see you back contributing to CC and sharing such an interesting find. I’m not enough of a small-pickup fan to bother looking it up, but I thought most or all the contemporary Japanese pickups sold in the U.S. had a separate ladder frames and beds. The Sunny has the bed integrated with the body. Does that mean unit construction (a la Rabbit pickup)?
My son has been living in Japan for a while and speaks Japanese fluently. When I visited him a few years ago, we took a day trip to an inland (flat!) rural area, rented some bikes and rode around for the day. It was a lot of fun, and I recall the vehicle mix was very different than in the cities: older and more utilitarian — come to think of it, analogous to what we see in North America. I bring it up because you might have more CC-spotting opportunities in the boonies.
Semi-unit, with a half- ladder frame behind the cab wall and the car unit body forward of it.
Only full ladder-frame trucks were sent to the US (apart from the Subaru BRAT with its’ tax-dodging seats in the bed) because the above mentioned “chicken tax” did NOT apply to incomplete vehicles, so they were sent as chassis cabs, the beds flatpacked separately, and the trucks completed in the port facilities.
Datsun Roadstar ute, quite a rare find these days they were fairly common here once upon a time but time and tuners intervened the 1200 sedan was tuned locally by a former Humber 80 racer, an extra 25hp easily extracted with a mild port job and the engines were then factory assembled into cars and badged SSS, naturally many 1200 sedans and utes got the hot up treatment and written off subsequently by unskilled pilots, combined with Japanese cars of the era ability to rust there arent many left
Nice looking Ute ! .
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I doubt it would have sold many in the U.S.A. , too bad .
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-Nate
I don’t imagine they would have done the volume of the El Camino or the Ranchero but I bet (without the 25% penalty the chicken tax would have added) they would have put a good dent in the small truck market. That said, the trucks Nissan, Toyota, Mazda and Isuzu sent were all great looking, respectable little trucks, too.
Our Falcon utes from the same period had small rubber quarter bumpers like these. Nice find Thomas; I’m still seeing these out and about here in oz.
Sounds like yet another reason for Americans to emigrate Down Under.
Those colourless brake light lenses strike me as “those can’t be original equipment…can they?” Maybe there’s a red balloon inside them covering the bulb, but if so, it’s not as obvious as it probably would be. All I see that’s red in these pics is the mandatorily-round-in-Japan rear reflectors.
You have a good eye. I imagine the tail light lenses are an aftermarket item. 10 or 15 years ago, clear lenses and colored bulbs were all the rage here. I am happy that the trend has lost its popularity as I found it particularly annoying to be stuck behind those guys in traffic.
The worst I felt in Japan was just after arriving while riding the Narita Express, one of the very first cars I saw in Japan was an obnoxious yellow Hummer H2. Literally one of the first ten cars I saw there. And to be honest, outside car lots I never really saw many interesting cars. I’d see a few parked in the stack-able contraptions people have next to their houses, like a modded 240z but overall it was mostly sedans and minivans (which are so much cooler looking than ours – sorry Thom).
It was sort of unnerving watching traffic while riding a bus from the base back to the airport for a side trip to Korea (they have about 12 cars to choose from there apparently) looking out the windows was like looking into a black and white photo. Aside from a few very dark reds all the cars on the road were black, gray, or white. It is even more pronounced there than here in the states.
So I can understand why it would be hard to find CCs worth shooting.
There are still a fair amount of cars from the 80s around, but a lot of time I find them stuffed into parking garages and really hard to shoot. Also, when I find a particularly interesting car I want to talk to the owner, but that isn’t always possible, so my efforts are more protracted than I would like.
The other thing I am doing is adhering to the Japanese guidlines for taking photos in public by trying to avoid people and scrubbing license plate numbers. I figure cars for sale on the lemon lot are fair game, but if they are out on the road I’m going to touch them up.
I scrub plates out of courtesy. Things are theoretically more lax here in terms of faces etc but I treat others as I would hope I myself would be treated in this regard. Biggest issue I have is shooting interiors; I know the US readers are intensely interested in how dashboards on imported US cars are dealt with here but I just can’t bring myself to shoot the interior of a car without the owner’s permission. In some ways it feels like I’m shooting into their living room uninvited.
I feel the same way about the interiors. I think its a bridge too far unless I can get permission. Besides, there are probably interior shots for a lot of these cars available on the internet already if someone is really curious.