Museum Classic: 1938 Nissan Type 70 Phaeton – JDM Book, Paige One

The Japanese car landscape in the pre-war era was an alien world. More primordial ooze than anything else, with a few semi-organized entities – domestic or foreign – producing very small quantities of cars and trucks for a country that had virtually no paved roads. One of those entities was Nissan, which took control of Datsun circa 1934 and carried on making minute quantities of (unlicensed) Austin Seven clones. But a larger model bearing Nissan’s own name loomed on the horizon.

Before that, the all-mighty government had to give an impulse, as with many things in Japan. In May 1936, the Automobile Manufacturing Industry Law was passed, requiring manufacturers of over 3000 cars and trucks per annum to get a license from the authorities. This was meant to force foreign carmakers, hitherto the only ones capable of such output, to establish joint-ventures with local businesses. In 1936, the only two manufacturers that were granted licenses were Toyota and Nissan.

Whereas Toyota had developed their own car and running gear on their own (by which I mean they reverse-engineered a Chevrolet chassis and stuck a Chrysler Airflow-lookalike body on top), Nissan had nothing except the legacy Datsun design, which was tiny. They shopped around for something more appropriate and somehow came upon the Graham Crusader. The four-door though, not this one.

It’s not known exactly whether the Graham deal was masterminded by William Gorham, an American engineer who worked for Nissan, or by Graham-Paige CEO Joseph Graham himself when he visited Japan in the mid-‘30s. Either way, with Graham in dire financial straits, Nissan’s offer to purchase the whole Crusader assembly line, machine-tools and all, for a cool $390,000 (about $8.5m in 2025) was eagerly accepted. While they were at it, Nissan also purchased Graham’s truck line as well. And so, in June 1937 the Nissan Type 70 was officially launched.

It was an almost exact reincarnation of the Graham, with a few minor differences. The grille was simplified and the steering was converted to RHD, for a start, but otherwise, the 111-inch wheelbase four-door saloon was as faithful (and legal) a badge-engineering job as any. Graham still sold the Crusader during MY 1937, so I’m guessing they accumulated a bit of stock before the assembly line was shipped over the Pacific.

There was one notable difference, though: by 1936, the Graham Crusader was powered by a Continental straight-6, which was not part of the deal as it wasn’t Graham’s to offer. However, tooling for the firm’s old 85hp side-valve 224ci (3666cc) 6-cyl. was available, so that’s what Nissan ended up using. The Graham six became the Nissan A engine, powering most trucks and buses coming out of the Yokohama works until well into the ‘50s, by which point it had been converted to OHV.

But what of this odd phaeton body style? you may ask. That was not something Graham had in their range, obviously. This was a bit of in-house coachbuilding on the part of Nissan to satisfy the only customer that mattered in Japan in those days: the Imperial Army. Military men around the globe have always had a fondness for this body style, possibly because it was easier to keep their precious headwear on.

On the flip side, this meant that the closed cars’ fine velours seats and wool carpets had to be replaced by something more weather-resistant. The design is pretty much an identical mirror image to the original Graham, some of which (I believe) were sold in RHD anyway.

From 1938 onwards, the phaeton joined the range, which otherwise included a four-door saloon in either standard or deluxe trim. All but a handful the big Nissans produced (just like for the contemporary Toyotas) were bought by State entities, conglomerates or taxi companies.

The first car to bear the Nissan badge was therefore a pretty muted affair. It was the base saloon from a second-tier American manufacturer, sold only as a fleet model as virtually nobody could afford to buy it and the only local variant that was a military staff car. No wonder Nissan prefer to refer to the cute little Datsun roadster as their first car nowadays.

Around 5500 Type 70s were built between 1937 and 1943, when Nissan temporarily quit making passenger cars to focus all their energies on trucks. It’s unclear how many of those were convertibles like this one – a series of 500 units is a number that floats about. Whatever the case may be, there are literally a handful of these ur-Nissans still in existence – unlike the Toyota AA/AB, of which only a single carcass (found a few years back in Siberia) is still extant.

Could be dumb luck, or it could be that the big Nissans were made of sturdier stuff. Either way, it died without issue – big Nissans of the ‘60s bore more Austin influence. The real legacy of the Type 70 was its engine, which powered the very first Nissan Patrols and was the marque’s first straight-6. It could also be seen as the last Graham car ever produced, given that the marque’s last US-made cars were sold in early 1941. The last Paige coincided with the JDM turning over a new leaf.