I must have walked by this early ‘80s Nissan Laurel fifty times – it’s parked in the lot of a local mechanic, on the route from our house to the nearest train station. I always give it an admiring glance, but Johannes Dutch’s recent post on a Laurel he encountered while attending the 2016 Ewijk Festijn prompted me to give it a little extra scrutiny on my most recent walk by – and am I glad I did. It has a badge that I had previously overlooked…
Before we identify the badge, let’s look back at the Laurel. Nissan built the Laurel from 1968 to 2002, through eight different generations. It was a mid-size offering that was a step up from a compact (Nissan Sunny (Sentra) or Toyota Corolla), but didn’t have the prestige of a luxury model (Nissan Gloria/Cedric or Toyota Crown). Its equivalents today are the Camry, Accord, Mazda 6, Fusion, Malibu, etc.
As with most JDM models in this era, it came in a broad range of body styles and engine options. On top is a mild-mannered sedan with a 1.8L four cylinder, while on the bottom is a stylish coupe with a mighty fuel-injected 2.8L straight six (L28E – same engine as the 280Z).
The Laurel was always given a little more styling “pizzazz” than other Nissan models, and it was generally the most aggressively styled of its other mid-sized contemporaries (Mark II/Chaser/Cresta/Vigor). I thought this sixth generation (1989-93) had an attractive, low-slung, lean look to it.
Another unique aspect was that with the exception of one model generation (5th-1984/89), it never used a V6 engine – in six-cylinder form, it used versions of Nissan’s current straight six, the stout SOHC L-series in early models, and then the superb RB series DOHC in later ones.
Given its rear drive orientation and easily modified engines, it was and is a favorite of the drift crowd…
The last model year was 2002…this is another special edition; a “Club S” – under the hood is a 2.5L RB25DET good for 280 hp.
It was replaced by the Teana in ’03– quite a step back in my view…
Back to the badge – here it is – a little tough to make out but I‘m sure any Nieman-Marcus shopper or Lincoln Mark IV – VI owner will recognize the signature of Hubert de Givenchy.
This is a fourth generation Laurel (built from 1980-84) and a fairly rare Givenchy edition built only in 1982. As a special model, it had the top engine offering; a 2.0 L-series (L20ET) fuel injected, turbocharged straight six, good for 145 hp.
This style two-toned charcoal/silver paint scheme was somewhat de rigueur in the late 70’s/early ‘80s in Japan.
That checked interior looks sharp – didn’t Audrey Hepburn wear a hat with the same style in Breakfast at Tiffany’s?
There’s no sign in the window but next trip by, I’m definitely going to ask the shop owner if it’s for sale…
Nice find. I’m a fan of 80s-90s Japanese car design; conservative, but handsomely clean. I wish they had brought models such as this to the Canadian market.
Matthew with 2 T’s
I agree, I have always liked the side mirrors mounted on the hood. It has that very foreign appeal to it.
The first shot reminds me of a Ford LTD from roughly the same era.
LTD II Fox Body. Like all the Fox body cars (except the Mustang) they were once numerous and then it was as if they had all disapared.
I hope you buy it Jim. I bought a beater 1983 280C (Cedric) for $500 and EVERYTHING worked on it except the carby needed rebuilding for $200. The only downsides were a giant surface rust spot on the roof and a lack of springback for the key ignition (which is the thing that finally killed the car, $800 to fix)
This Laurel is nice and even nicer being a Givenchy ltd ed. Enjoyed this overview and good luck.
Thanks Don – that Cedric must have been nice – I’ve always liked them and the Gloria.
Yep, the exterior looks pretty clean and if the interior and engine are sound, I’ll likely make him an offer…. Jim.
From the rear, at this angle, that gold-colored coupe looks like its designer was an admirer of the 1971 Plymouth Satellite.
Totally agree – as if horizontally shrunken.
Nice find and I would take it, except the steering wheel is on the wrong side
Look again, it’s on the right side.
The fourth gen looks kind of like an 83 LTD. Handsome cars.
You know I didn’t think of that until you and Surfer Sandman mentioned it but you’re right – I remember now Ford offered a similar paint scheme also. Jim.
Ha I remember these cars. The Ford LTD/Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquise, Chevrolet Caprice Classic, Pontiac Parisienne etc. Were squarely aimed at senior citizens above the age 60.
No wonder you still see them around from time to time.
I’ve heard of the Nissan Laurel. I’ve seen pics of the car, for some reason, they were never sold here in the USA. Some generations look more attractive than others.
Geez, I can’t get past those side view mirrors! You just kind of want to take hold of them and yank them off.
Obtrusive much?
One of the 1st car magazines I would pick up that was “international” in flavor had one of these Laurel 2 doors on the front cover….a 1st or 2nd generation model.
As a former owner of a 280Z, I have a lot of respect and admiration for “vintage” Nissans. Unlike others who will post here, RHD wouldn’t be as big a deterrent to ownership as parts availability….and Nissans are fairly reasonable on that point.
This particular car? Yes, I would buy it if the price wasn’t too outrageous. However, as much as I am nostalgic for 2-toning on cars, I would soooo want to paint this 1 solid color. I’d paint it the darker upper shade.
“Interesting” choice of upholstery material.
Were the fender-mounted side-view mirrors mandatory for a while in Japanese cars? Seems that so many ’60’s & ’70’s models have them.
The ’61 Austin 850 (Mini) that my dad drove also had a fender-mounted mirror…. leading me to think that it may have been a Brit thing as well … ? ….
“Were the fender-mounted side-view mirrors mandatory for a while in Japanese cars?”
Yes. Until 1983, it was required that mirrors were to be visible thru the area in which the wipers cleared the windshield.
Japanese manufacturers thought of everything, including the telescoping poles that extend from the front bumpers to help the drivers gauge the distance. Some wing mirrors had tiny wipers fitted in the housings as an extra-cost option or standard equipment in the higher trim level.
I recalled from old magazine articles that some JDM vehicles actually had smaller wipers installed on the front doors to clear side windows as to circumvent the archaic requirement.
Was its companion car called the “Hardy”?
Early- to mid-1980s high-end Nissans may have been the most Brougham-y cars not made by an American manfacturer. Those loose-cushion button-tufted velour seats wouldn’t have looked out of place in a … … … Continental Mark V. Some Maximas of similar vintage had equally Broughamed-out interiors.
Some of the JDM Nissans were even labeled Broughams, if that tells you anything. Conservative upper-middle-class Japanese buyers apparently loved that stuff. Home-market Toyota Crowns (“Royal Saloons”) were the same way — maroon velour and shiny gadgets all over the place. Except for interior width and overall dimensions, contemporary Detroit luxury fanciers would have been right at home.
Which I find kind of humorous, as looking at these old high end Japanese cars, they’re very buttoned down and conservative in appearance. With the Detroit stuff, you could make the argument that the out there and wild exterior styling made the brougham interiors seem natural (for the most part anyway), these almost seem like meeting a well dressed CEO who, underneath his Armani suit, is wearing a tie-dyed shirt and leopard skin underwear. It seems kind of weird to see these boxy understated JDM Nissans have the same interior appointments you would come to see in a Fleetwood Talisman.
Quite common in NZ many came with the LD28 engines which are a popular fuel economy replacement for Australian sixes available in NA and turbo form,
I drove a sixth gen Laurel with the LD28 in the mid-90s that was part of the motor pool fleet – great car and engine – lots of down-low torque and fairly smooth for a diesel. Jim.
A guy I know has a turbo LD28 and 5 speed in a XF falcon ute and the same powertrain in his 48 Ford pickup, they both go quite well and very good on fuel.
Didn’t know about these Givenchy models. Thanks for sharing! I love this obscure stuff, as many of you may be aware by now.
That 4th gen was sold here in South Africa, as a step up from the regular Skyline Sedan. We also got a model prior to that but it looked different to anything on this page, if I remember correctly. I miss the days where affordable large Japanese sedans with 6 cylinder engines and RWD were available.
The sedan 1980-1984 Laurels seem to be a blatant copy of the 1st generation Opel Senator (1978-1986) in my eyes:
Compare to the Laurel:
Now that looks like a Fox body LTD!
Comparing these to the modern Honda Accord/Toyota Camry/Ford Mondeo et al is a little misleading. It’s not wrong, exactly, since modern D-segment sedans are even bigger, but that doesn’t really contextualize the market position.
Thirty or forty years ago, the Laurel and Toyota Mark II/Chaser were what I suppose we’d call near-luxury cars, occupying a segment that’s now pretty near extinct. They were considered fairly big cars by domestic standards, since by the early ’80s they were right against the size limits for the small car (5-number) tax class beyond which things got really expensive, and they were fancier and better appointed (especially the four-door hardtops) than middle-class family cars like a Bluebird or Toyota Corona. It was like the difference between a Buick LeSabre and a Chevrolet Malibu, if that tells you anything.
A point of interest is that until the early ’90s, the Laurel four-door hardtops were real pillarless hardtops, whereas their Toyota rivals just had a different roofline and concealed B-pillars. (There had previously been some two-door hardtop as well, but they’d mostly died out by 1981.) Your photo car, a C31, is pillarless, as were the C32 and C33.
Thanks for the comments, though I’d have to disagree with your assertion that the Laurel and companion makes were positioned in the upper middle class segment. My take from being here in Japan in the 80s was that it was broken down more into front drive vs rear drive – and within each model were lower-line and higher grades. You could get a bare-bones rear drive Laurel with the LD28 diesel that was very basic, or one of the loaded up models. The front drive Bluebird offered this same range – a stripped 1.8 litre model or the hot SSS version. Same with the GX71 Toyotas – a basic 1.8 Mark II pillared sedan up to the 2.5 Twin Cam model, with the Corona FF offering a front drive alternative.
I was a Cresta fan – had an ’82 and an ‘88. Jim.
You could get the top of the range with the diesel engine too and the bare bones model with the petrol engine, SSS in Bluebirds is a trim level only not a performance model, the Japanese market is very different from what you understand, by the way Crestas come in diesel too.
I’d love to know HOW they painted these (and many others) two-tone
Jim! As the world’s biggest Laurel fan, this is now my favourite ever CC post! I’ve owned C33, C34 and C35 (gen6-8) Laurels for about 15 years – I only recently sold my last one, a C35, to fund ongoing work on my Magnificent Elderly Ford Sierra. All my Laurels were bought for commuting long distance so were the reliable and economical RD28 diesel model – such a delightfully smooth and quiet diesel.
Anyway, I’ve never owned a C31 Laurel like you’ve found, but always wanted to. The C31 was sold new here in NZ in pillared sedan and hardtop form – they were all UK-spec (albeit with metric instrumentation). The top-spec NZ-new C31 had the two-tome paint as featured in the car you caught. Then of course we got oodles of C31s coming in as used JDM import in the late 80s and early 90s. Hardly any left now though sadly, although I keep a regular eye on the internet auction sites in the hope an immaculate C31 hardtop appears. They’re few and far between, so it’s really made my day to log into CC this morning after a weekend away, and to see not only a Laurel, but a gorgeous example of a C31 – and, as the icing on the cake, a Givenchy version!!! Swoon!!! Well done that man! 😀
Thanks Scoot – I’ll keep an eye open for any other Laurels that would make an interesting post.
http://www.japanclassic.ru/booklets
Meanwhile, for your (Japanese) reading pleasure
Don’t worry, there’s enough English in most of these to get the gist.
Never knew a Givenchy model existed–did Lincoln know they were being cheated on? ! I do like the style of this generation Laurel though.
Chris M.
I always find it interesting when car makers commission designers to use their name for a “designer edition model”. Rather it’s Lincoln Mark VII (Bill Bass Edition), Ford’s Eddie Bauer Edition, Givenchy, even Cadillac had a “Gucci Edition”.
Sure when new the car might have been cool, but as the car ages and begins to look dated. A designer name series quickly starts to look like a street pimp was in the car design studio right along side the design engineer making his recommendations.
The only model IMO that seemed to align correctly was the Lincoln Town Car Cartier Edition, just has a nice ring to it. Jaguar special editions sounds like they match the cars heritage with the “Vanden Plas”, & Daimler Editions etc.
Anyway those days are long gone, interesting times back then.
The tail lights on the featured car remind me of early 80’s Honda Prelude
The Laurel fell into a uniquely Japanese car category, It was larger than the family sedans Bluebirds, Corona, Capella, Accord, yet smaller than the Gloria/Cedric / Crown, albeit latterly not by much.
Possibly akin to an Audi 100 or BMW5 in size and status.
I’d love to know what origami magic they used to allow those rear door windows more wind down to give the full hardtop experience.
On my C33 and C35 Laurels, as the rear door windows started going down, they simultaneously moved rearwards an inch or so. Once the rear of the window was down as far as it could go (limited by the door’s curvature), the rear stopped going down but the front carried on, effectively pivoting downwards from the rear. The C35’s rear window went down a lot further than the C33 – see pics of both mine below.
I had to adjust the rear windows in my pillarless C33 to get them to seal better with the front door glass, the mechanisms were actually quite simple in design but remarkably effective.
Impressive. A lesson not learned by Mercedes whose 4 door coupes have rear quarter glass.