Nissan's whimsical quartet
Sunday January 22, 2006
Nissan showed a surprisingly playful and humourous side at the end of the eighties and beginning of the nineties. First, the Be-1 was released in 1987. It managed to look retro without being a modern reworking of anything specific. It had absolutely nothing fancy under the skin, and was based on the then-current March/Micra. It kept the 988cc engine of those cars but none of their staid and ordinary looks.
Next came the Pao. Not quite as good-looking as the Be-1, it was very much cut from the same cloth. It looked more utilitarian and spartan, and was probably a little more practical. It had identical mechanicals. Both the Be-1 and the Pao were offered in manual and automatic forms.
In 1989, Nissan gave us the S-Cargo, perhaps the highlight of these playful little machines. The S-Cargo was a play on the French word for snail, escargot, and the little van has design cues that reflected that. It had a larger 1500cc engine coupled to a 3-speed automatic gearbox. Reminiscent of a snail in both name and nature!
The last of the four arrived a couple of years later, in 1991. The Figaro looked like a toy car from a children's novel. It used the familiar 988cc engine of the Be-1 and Pao, and took the styling theme to a conclusion. It seemed to be more deliberately styled like a micro-car from the fifties, particularly the Gutbrod Superior comes to mind when looking at it. This time however, it had a turbocharged engine, which took the power up to 76 bhp. Only an automatic transmission was available for the Figaro.
Nissan showed some real courage to produce these special cars. In many ways they should be considered as the model for current trends, which tend to look to past successes for design inspiration. Nissan was definitely one of the very first to take this approach in recent history, and certainly they have done it at least as well as anyone else.
Next came the Pao. Not quite as good-looking as the Be-1, it was very much cut from the same cloth. It looked more utilitarian and spartan, and was probably a little more practical. It had identical mechanicals. Both the Be-1 and the Pao were offered in manual and automatic forms.
In 1989, Nissan gave us the S-Cargo, perhaps the highlight of these playful little machines. The S-Cargo was a play on the French word for snail, escargot, and the little van has design cues that reflected that. It had a larger 1500cc engine coupled to a 3-speed automatic gearbox. Reminiscent of a snail in both name and nature!
The last of the four arrived a couple of years later, in 1991. The Figaro looked like a toy car from a children's novel. It used the familiar 988cc engine of the Be-1 and Pao, and took the styling theme to a conclusion. It seemed to be more deliberately styled like a micro-car from the fifties, particularly the Gutbrod Superior comes to mind when looking at it. This time however, it had a turbocharged engine, which took the power up to 76 bhp. Only an automatic transmission was available for the Figaro.
Nissan showed some real courage to produce these special cars. In many ways they should be considered as the model for current trends, which tend to look to past successes for design inspiration. Nissan was definitely one of the very first to take this approach in recent history, and certainly they have done it at least as well as anyone else.
