(first posted 4/24/2015) Fellow carspotter AVL sent me a pic of a rare Nissan he had captured in transit. I immediately got on the phone, ascertained its exact location, jumped in the car and was there within half an hour. Never done that before for a spotting, but this was no ordinary classic; it was a Cedric, it was a wagon and it was a very, very early example. Thankfully, it was still parked when I got there and now it’s here on CC.
I’ve written up the Cedric here, but a quick recap of it origins is in order. After licencing the Austin A50 as their senior car range, Nissan prepared their own effort. Launched in 1960, the 30-series Cedric was initially powered by a 1488 cc I4, which was soon joined by a 1883 cc I4. A van was introduced into the range, and a wagon followed. The bars in the cargo area in the brown example above show this to be a van version.
The 31-series Cedric was the 1962 update for the range. Externally, the stacked headlights were now placed side-by-side, making the car look wider. It was the first export Cedric, landing in 1963 in the US, where it was a sales disaster. It made its way to Australia with better results. This taxi, found at earlydatsun.com, bears a number plate from our state of Victoria. A quick glance at dimensions paints an interesting comparison with the bestselling EH Holden; The Cedric was longer (4511mm – EH, 4590 – Ced) but narrower (1727 – EH, 1690 – Ced). However, the Cedric taxi was not at all a common sight.
Our wagon is a Mark 3 WP31 made from September 1964 until September 1965. The grille is the telltale here, with the lower section featuring the four-by-three small vertical dividers. The numberplate is a recent issue, but it’s likely this example landed here new. It seems as if every car maker from that period had their own version of dull green.
The awkwardness of this shape is most apparent in profile; the outdated wraparound screen, the overly tall stance, and the rear wheels sitting too far forward. This was an early styling effort for Nissan, and the sum of the parts didn’t quite work. For me, the least successful visual feature is the rear wings extending far beyond the rear window plane.
This rear fender effect brings to mind the Studebaker range from the late 1950s. Using essentially the same cabins as the early ’50s Studes, the rear fenders were extended to meet the expectations of a public presented with increasingly larger models from the Big Three as the fifties progressed.
That’s not quite the case here. As you can see, the lower rear gate actually extends outward of the rear glass, but the visual result is nonetheless disconcerting – especially considering the Cedric wagon is longer than the sedan by 40 mm. For JDM anoraks, those amber lenses were a Mark 3 addition.
The rear-facing fold-down seat is the most significant difference between the wagon and the six-seater van. Not sure how much legroom there is, however.
On its upgrade in 1962, the Cedric was almost instantly redundant. The S40 series Crown, also launched in 1962, was far more modern in appearance. Designed to the squarer idiom emerging from the US, it was a generation ahead of the Cedric.
Nissan’s response was in the wings. Pininfarina was consulted and the next Cedric shape more than matched the Crown for modernity. The 130 series, launched in late 1965, was a surer footing for Nissan’s large car ambitions.
The origin of the Cedric name is not exactly clear. The official Nissan story is that the name was chosen from main character of the 1886 book ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy’, but others state it was from a character in ‘Ivanhoe’. Sir Walter Scott, who wrote ‘Ivanhoe’ in 1819, apparently derived the name from the even older Cerdic. Nissan’s head Katsuji Kawamata was thought to have named the Fairlady sports car after the musical ‘My Fair Lady’ and it appears these names were chosen to bring some English prestige to the models.
In 1969 the Cedric was renamed here in Australia as the Big Datsun Six. The naming system was subsequently changed to the ‘C’ models starting with 1971’s 240C and ending with the 300C of 1983.
It’s not a car I’m hoping to own, but was definitely worth chasing down for the photos. This one is clearly used and appreciated by its owner, if not obsessively preserved for posterity. Like the Dromana Drive-in Theatre celebrated on the bumper sticker, this is a wonderful survivor from another age.
Further reading:
One of many PN-series Nissan 710 wagons
Nissan Stagea – wagons done wicked
Wait a minute. Is there a drive-in in Dromana?
I’ve been to the Coburg one. It’s cool to hear the movie through your stereo.
Still going, Athos. You can see it to the left of the Dromana turn-off from the Mornington Peninsula Hwy
Cheers Don.
It’s great to sit here in Elwood on a cloudy Melbourne afternoon and read fresh content with local references to Coburg and Dromana.
Thanks Don, a great little article on an always pretty obscure vehicle. They were a rare site growing up in Melbourne through the 70’s and 80’s and now 40 years later to see one parked on the street, I salute your commitment to the cause sir.
Keep up the great work.
Perhaps they should hire the Italians again, Japanese cars have now gone back to awkward styling again with few exceptions. I’m thinking modern Toyota products most of all.
What a great find. It is great to pick out the English influences on these early Japanese models. Front and profile have a little of the Humber Super Snipe Estate, with just a hint of the then new P6 taillights to give it just a hint of rakishness. I really like this car. So efficient with a 1.8 four, 4 speed? on the column? and room for 8 or really as many as you could pile in. Makes an Amazon, Chevy II wagon, or even a Pug 404 seem common. Also the name Cedric, makes you feel you have a servant, not just a car. What service Cedric must have provided over all these years.
I have never seen one of these. The styling is fascinating. The lower portion is almost a perfect parallelogram. You are right that there are very attractive parts that don’t quite come together.
I read somewhere that ‘Cedric’ was the first name of an English engineer who helped Nissan in the postwar years. Nissan was so grateful they named the car after him.
It’s interesting you say that, Bootiebike. Years ago i read an article on the men who accompanied the machinery to Nissan and trained them up. The Austin guys were impressed by the way the Nissan engineers quickly grasped the knowledge. It was when these engineers returned to England that they were ridiculed for suggesting that the Japanese would not always be lagging behind in the future. I really wish I could find the article (it was in a British mag like C&SC) because I remember having the impression of bonhomie between these trainer engineers and the Nissan people. Your suggestion wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Nissan built better Austin engines than Austin themselves a lot of that is down to brand new tooling in Japan and not in the UK they were still using prewar machinery,
Todd motors the local Chrysler Rootes assembler and importer had Isuzu casting 1725cc engine blocks for Hillman Hunters rather than getting them in CKD packs from the UK, Isuzu built Hillmans in the 50s under licence.
Englishmen have often helped future competitors, as in VW’s postwar reboot. W. Deming was America’s contribution to Japanese industrial success.
This wasn’t the 1st time. Starting with the Meiji regime, Japan got much assistance from England, in both training & warship construction, in modernizing the Imperial Navy. This wasn’t all one-sided though; the Russo-Japanese War helped motivate British development of the all big-gun “Dreadnaught.”
The area between the front wheels and the “B” pillar is pure late ’50s/early ’60s Rambler wagon – especially the windscreen and “A” pillar.
You beat me to it… exactly what saw.
Nice find! And, looking at that 130, I see a lot of then the futures 510 wagon in it.
Sweet looking car. Looking at it and the Toyota (Toyopet) Crown of the same vintage, I find the Nissan (Datsun) Cedric more attractive. Particularly in station wagon form. I think the rear facing seating is for children between the ages of 4 and 8 yrs.
The rear-facing seat of station wagons (when they were even available) is a good reason why minivans are preferable: even adults, or oversized teens, can sit in the back of these.
So? What’s wrong with that? No one in my immediate family had owned a station wagon. But I used to know people who did, and their children loved riding in the back. W
Indeed, when they’re young, & not susceptible to car-sickness either.
I think they were made for children, and not for adults. They were generally used to keep the child(ren) from bugging the parents with their chants of “are we there yet?” etc.
Yes, young kids & cars are a bad mix; perhaps smart phones help now as a distraction (for passengers only, I hope).
I once had a coworker wearing a shirt labeled “Dad’s Tours,” with “We’ll get there when we get there” & “Don’t make me have to stop this car!”
Although I’ve never had such problems, I’ve heard of parents, usually fathers, saying things like that during long road trips.
Until you get to the rear view, this car (to me anyway) strongly resembles a Rambler. That rear view doesn’t look too bad, until you notice the wraparound rear side windows.
With a 1.5 liter 4 cylinder engine I’m not surprised these cars did so poorly in the U.S. That engine almost sounds like it was adequate when empty, but add even 3 passengers it must have been a noisy battle (trying) to keep up with traffic.
As for contemporary Japanese car styling…no arguments from me. BUT, it looks like the pendulum is about to swing back at Nissan if the 2016 Maxima and Titan are any indication.
Needless to say, this is one of the most obscure finds here at CC, a car I would not ever expected to be found curbside. Congratulations.
I see similarities to several cars, as some others have mentioned, but I also see more than a bit of Checker Marathon in the greenhouse (other than the windshield), especially at the rear.
I wonder if any of the ones imported to the US survived.
Great article with lots of pics on perhaps the only surviving U.S. “Datsun Cedric 1900” in Autoweek: http://autoweek.com/article/car-life/may-be-oldest-surviving-nissan-north-america
They had the same observation (“looks kinda like a Checker”):
Nice car, but they blew its styling origins, attributing it several times to Pininfarina. Anyone familiar with Farina’s work in the 50s would know otherwise. Oh well…it is AutoWeek. 🙂
Right. Nissan styling chief Shozo Sato was responsible for the 30-series. In my Cedric history I thought the horizontal headlight configuration of the 31-series might have come from PF (as seen on the 410) but that was pure speculation.
Nissan cloned the Fiat 2300 to create this Cedric, whoever Fiat employed to design their car deserves the acolades or others.Oops apparently its all accidental cloning from comments further down my bad
I wonder how accurate the pricing info they gave (“You could have this, or a Cadillac”) is. Surely there was someone in the Nissan organization who was aware of what the market would bear for what was still a compact car by US standards, with somewhat dated styling, from a new and unproven make with a still-skimpy dealer network.
Apparently the famous Mr. K wanted nothing to do with it, he was in charge of Datsun on the West Coast at the time iirc and the Cedric model guide at Adam’s link is noted “Sold in Eastern states only”.
I’ve never seen a Nissan Cedric here in the USA. Nissan (Datsun) must’ve sold such a limited number of them that they’d be as rare as hen’s teeth today.
Hi Paul,
The Pininfarina link is not necessarily untrue. They have acknowledged working with Nissan/Datsun in the early 1960s on projects that were never to be claimed as anything but Japanese in origin. The front of the Cedric is nearly identical to the Pininfarina styled Fiat 2300 (see picture attached). My guess is that they got Pininfarina’s work and altered the proportions drastically to suit their needs.
They only really exist in Australia now, which Nissan used as a test market for the US and Europe.
bob
I should have been clearer: the new horizontal twin headlight front end of the Series 31 Cedric most likely did originate from Pininfarina, one way or another. But the original Series 30 Cedric predates the Pininfarina connection; it went into production in March of 1960, so it was designed before Farina got involved. And the Series 30 has been acknowledged to be an in-house design. As Don Andreina wrote in this post: Nissan styling chief Shozo Sato was responsible for the 30-series.
Without even that public attribution, the Series 30 and 31, minus the new front end, are very obviously not the work or influence of Pininfarina.
Bob, I’ve written up a styling history of the Cedric up to the 430 here:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/curbside-classic-nissan-cedric-when-the-pupil-becomes-a-master/
It’s not definitive, but it’s the best of what I can find so far. The 130 Cedric is very similar to the Fiat 2300 (which was an in-house Fiat job with PF providing the finishing details), but when you look at this 1962 PF sketch provided to Nissan, there remains the possibility that Nissan styled the 130 themselves. PF haven’t openly acknowledged the 130 as theirs, but clearly they had some hand in it.
I’ve spent a few hours trying to track down the article that i read about the contract relationship between Datsun and Pininfarina which went back some years before the 130. It was relating to the absolute secrecy that Datsun outsourced styling in the early year as it was a matter of pride that they claimed it was all in house (the 31 nose was particularly mentioned). I agree that the 30 has no apparent Pininfarina input, but the front end re-work of the 31 shares a lot with the Fiat 2300 and 1500 (put chrome trim around the edge of the cedric and it’s near identical). The 130 must have been late pre-production when the 31 was released and it would have been a very strange thing for Pininfarina to have worked on the 130 while the copy-cat nose of the 31 was rolling off the production line!
I’ll keep looking into it and try to find that article…..
That’s as I surmised re: 31/130.
Moving off-topic (just because we can on a site like this).
The Fiat 1800/2100 was an in-house effort by Fabio Luigi Rapi under Dante Giacosa. The full size plaster was taken to Pinin Farina where they (maybe even ‘he’ himself) applied the final details including the angry headlight look (twin not quad at that point) and cleaner sides to the body. This is, in all fairness a PF design, even the pre-PF plaster owes much to the Florida II.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/pininfarinas-revolutionary-florida-the-most-influential-design-since-1955/
On the other hand, the 1300/1500 is a Mario Boano (then at Fiat) under Giacosa shape. According to Giacosa, he states PF were not really interested on this job and provided a few sketches only. Early 1300/1500 mockups have the 1800/2100 angry headlight look and another with a face very similar to the PF Cadillac Jacqueline. Giacosa felt these were starting to look old, and it was only after visiting the 1959 NY Motor Show and seeing the Corvair that he decided to use this language instead.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-how-the-1960-corvair-started-a-global-design-revolution/
Back to the Cedric, I’d love to know the specifics of the contract and how much PF were involved in the ‘hands-on’ of the 130 or whether the Nissan stylists worked from the Dec 62 sketch themselves. If you ever find that article, please post it within this story. In return, here is a link to a Nissan newsletter that touches on their styling history. Cheers.
https://www.nissan.com.sg/localnews/newsletter/08_The_Unique_History_of_Nissan_Design.pdf
wonderful find, Don! I didn’t know the history of the Cedric down here, other than the 300C. I’ve always hoped to find a 300C but it’s been years now. I remember seeing them in the used car section of Which Car, and they were always getting panned. I’m fairly certain it was for lousy dynamics, but by that point it had premium aspirations. I wonder how these earlier Cedrics were priced relative to the competition.
For some reason, the Cedric was never sold under any name (Datsun or Nissan) here in the USA. So I’ve never seen one in person.
I only learned about the Cedric thru a German periodical “Auto Katalog,” which in the ’80s depicted the Y30 (300C) version. Apparently it was meant to compete with the S-class & 7-series, which should amuse European car snobs & proves Infiniti wasn’t the first with this purpose.
I like the name “Turbo Brougham” pictured in Wikipedia.
Amazing find. My hat is off to the owner for keeping this in daily service.
I agree. The less modifications a car receives the better. I like a car that’s kept as original as possible to when it left the showroom floor. Not to mention keeping up on maintenance to be able to drive it today. 🙂
That car looks like it has many stories to tell. Great find indeed of a very obscure vehicle!
What a wonderful find Don! And an excellent write-up, as always. One of these early Cedric wagons was for sale here a couple years ago; it had been the seller’s parents’ car while he was growing up. So rare, I hope it went to a good home. I love that this one you’ve photographed appears to be regularly used!
Awesome find, Don!! I love all the early Japanese cars, as well as most “big” Nissans, and the color & patina on this example are too perfect. Wish I could go for a ride…
I remember seeing these around when I was a kid but they were never all that common, either wagons or sedans. Toyota Crowns were much commoner. And although I lived in Melbourne, I never saw that taxi. With the anti-Japanese feeling after the war still strong then, I’m surprised they trialled one.
But once people realised how well-built Japanese cars were, and saw the value for money they offered, they soon forgave wartime memories.
The first person to import Japanese cars to oz in any significant numbers was… Laurence Hartnett starting around 1960 with Nissans. That’s a story in itself.
Wasn’t Hartnett a high ranking executive with GMH?
Yep. Father of the 48-215 Holden before he was sidelined.
Although it wasn’t a wagon, a Cedric was used in the late 80s Aussie film, The Big Steal.
IIRC, the car wasn’t used much in the film. It was used more to set the scene of a wacky suburban couple, who gave the much loved car to their son for his 18th birthday.
While the kid lusted after an XJ6 Jaguar, naturally .
It was a very funny film , well worth a look .
http://datsuns.com/modelguide/lg31.jpg
Wow what a rare beast , one more interesting product from The Land Of The Rising Sun .
So , this had the license built BMC ‘B’ Series engine ? .
A good effort if a bit too small for a Wagon .
FWIW , my large Teenaged Foster boys all argue about who gets to sit in the rear facing seat of my 1984 Mercedes European 300TD 7 passenger Wagon….. they love it back there as I did in the 1950’s , riding facing aft in Station Wagons .
-Nate
That’s my car! Best $2000 I’ve ever spent. It’s been back on the road about three years (history unknown before that) and I haven’t seen another one. It took me four months to persuade someone to sell me a windshield, which is sadly not blue tinted like the rest of it. Slowly tidying it up, but its my daily drive and there’s a ’68 citroen ds safari that needs my help first. Really need a hubcap.
Bob
Congrats Bob. Keep us in the loop about the DS Safari; when (or if) you’re ready to have it featured, just leave a message on one of my posts.
Hi Don. The Ds will probably be a year of so. Brilliant car but needs an engine rebuild, and if the engine is out of a ds, you may as well do everything! Another cedric picture when it’s clean-
Theres a Citroen wrecking yard in Hamilton NZ thats going to close down the guy wants out at 73 lots of DS stuff there google Skellnars Citroen if he hasnt got anything youre looking for I’d be surprised.
Even though the Cedric 30 was produced after the licence built Austin A50, it seems to be curiously similar in size to the later BMC Farina B models (minus a few inches in width).
It is possible the Cedric 30 still featured some carryover from Austin/BMC in the same way the Isuzu Bellel was said to have some carryover from the licence built Hillman Minx?
The dogleg a pillar is very reminiscent of an F series Vauxhall Victor. I wonder if Nissan’s stylists borrowed some of the design.
Interesting point about the Studebaker wagons. I marveled at those as a kid. The extended rear fenders that stuck out a foot beyond the tailgate looked so awkward. It’s interesting to me as a car geek that the 56 wagons used the shorter 1955 rear fenders with gorpy little fins glued on, while the sedans used the longer fenders. The 57 and 58 wagons used the sedan rear fenders.