Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Nissan is a T-topped shooting brake. It’s also a closed coupé since BOTH hatches are along for the ride. Let’s see if this “Radwood winner” has a price that will make it a winner in your book too.
I tried some imitation crab meat the other day and, oh boy, I don’t know who they think that stuff is fooling. Maybe someone who has never eaten actual crab meat, or never even seen a crab? All it tasted like to me was sad Tilapia and red food coloring.
I think we were all similarly disappointed in yesterday’s 1993 ‘Ferrari F355’ that was actually a Toyota MR2 T-top turbo with a body kit. At $16,000 it was the imitation crab of the car world and dropped in a massive 92% Crack Pipe loss.
To make up for that fake Ferrari a bit, today we’re going to look at a real-deal car that I’ll bet a lot of you wish was still being built. That would be this 1987 Nissan Pulsar NX, a car that is claimed by its seller to have won some sort of award at a past Radwood event. That accolade is not even the car’s most interesting aspect.
The biggest draw here is the car’s Swiss Army Knife-like design, and the fact that it comes with both Sportbak and notch-back hatches. With the notch hatch, you get a jaunty little coupe with some interesting styling features. Pop on the Sportbak, however, and suddenly you have a shooting brake straight outta Hammer time. You can also remove the T-tops for the ultimate fresh air wagon experience.
Back in the 1970s, Ford’s Ghia design studio created the Prima concept that featured a similar musical chairs back-end, but that clever car never saw production. Nissan not only offered the NX with a choice of hatches but made them so owners could switch between them fairly easily.
Other intriguing aspects of this generation of NX include pop-up headlamps, flush door pulls, and some of the coolest tail lamps you’ve ever seen.
This one sports 145,000 miles and seems to be in pretty sweet shape. The NX had some funky wheel options from the factory, however, this one rides on aftermarket Modas that give it a more modern appearance. The seller says the car was purchased about a year and a half ago and has since been used as a weekend fun car that also serves as a rolling work in progress. Now the driveway space it occupies is needed for some other purpose and so it’s up on the various classifieds for a new fan to find. More on that last bit a little later.
The bodywork appears solid, with decent paint and ‘80s-licious TWIN-CAM graphics on the rockers. That references the 1.6-litre DOHC four under the hood. That mill offers up 118 horsepower and is mated to a five-speed stick that drives the front wheels. The ad notes that everything except the A/C (R12) is in working order and a quick look underneath indicates that there’s no noticeable road rot either.
The interior is a mix of good and bad. Overall it seems a workable space with seat upholstery that has held up well and the full complement of trim. On the downside, the dashboard is cracked and has an ill-fitting carpet toupee masking the damage and doing so poorly. An aftermarket head unit occupies the center stack above the rubber-gaitered shifter.
There’s a lot to like here, and even more when you consider that the car comes with a clean title and an extra set of T-tops and door seals. All that comes with a $7,650 price tag… on Facebook Marketplace. Over on Craigslist, the asking price is $8,500.
I’m not sure how savvy the average car shopper might be, but whenever I go digging around for a car I search ad descriptions to see where else the car might be offered. That, by the way, is a good way to find scam ads too. In this case, it looks like the seller thinks fancier people go to Craigslist than Facebook and has priced the car accordingly on each. We’re going with the Facebook price since that’s the cheaper of the two.
What do you think, is this Pulsar worth that $7,650 asking? Or is that too high a bottom line even for a car with so many top options?
You decide!
Facebook Marketplace out of Long Island, NY, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Michael Ferruso for the hookup!
Another note from Rob: We’re trying a new poll!
Some other big changes coming to Nice Price or Crack Pipe in a few days. Actually the big change is that we are renaming the posts to “Good Buy or Goodbye” since drug references are so passé these days.
We’ll still have the same panoply of great cars, trucks, and bikes for you to judge, and the same opportunity to vote on their fates. It’ll just with a new name. Be on the lookout, and don’t freak out too much when you don’t see Nice Price or Crack Pipe on your feed.
Help me out with GBoGB. Hit me up at rob@jalopnik.com and send me a fixed-price tip. Remember to include your Kinja handle.