GM's legendary but rather old-school styling chief Bill Mitchell hated small cars. He once said that styling them was like tailoring a midget. The Japanese proved him wrong.
Nissans and Toyotas of the 1970s were like shrunken American cars with an extra serving of whiz bang. The 200-SX is a good example, because it looks a whole lot like a 1968-72 mid-sized GM coupe but with exaggerated features such as an exceptionally sharp fender crease, extra-large stretch pants taillights, and a swept-back C-pillar with requisite "head wound" plastic vent.
Sure, the 200-SX was awkward and overstyled, but it helped prove that small cars could be as baroque as big ones -- and that the Japanese could dish out cheesiness even better than the Americans. #1979
OK, Toyota was looking at the Mustang when they designed the Celica in the next post - what was Datsun looking at when they designed this, the Avanti? #1979
Imagine pitching a car to the general public today with "5 forward gears." Of course, back in the day, a 4 or 5 speed = "sporty," no matter how tiny the mill was. #1979
97hp + 2300lb is positively driveable by today's standards, really (not fast, but in real-world driving, you'd never notice). A bit more compression and less emissions controls could probably make that Datsun a lot of fun. #1979
@HoonThatFerrari: S-X? Maybe. Well, actually, probably. But, of course, it would depend on the context of the sentence. There is SIX, SAX and SOX. #1979
11/22/09
not professional driver... hence the lack of sliding through corners.
11/22/09
11/22/09
11/08/09
Gotta love a 2-door car with not only the requisite A- and B-pillars, but also C-, D-, E-, and possibly F- is you want to get picky.
Always like the tail light treatment on the later ones, too. Everything was angular, but not in a CTS-sorta way. #1979
11/08/09
They called it 200-SX so we Americans would think of sex...
Had they kept it Silvia, we'd have pictured Sylvia Miles from "Midnight Cowboy"... #1979
11/08/09
Nissans and Toyotas of the 1970s were like shrunken American cars with an extra serving of whiz bang. The 200-SX is a good example, because it looks a whole lot like a 1968-72 mid-sized GM coupe but with exaggerated features such as an exceptionally sharp fender crease, extra-large stretch pants taillights, and a swept-back C-pillar with requisite "head wound" plastic vent.
Sure, the 200-SX was awkward and overstyled, but it helped prove that small cars could be as baroque as big ones -- and that the Japanese could dish out cheesiness even better than the Americans. #1979
11/08/09
11/08/09
11/08/09
11/08/09
11/08/09
11/08/09
11/08/09
11/08/09
11/08/09