If there ever was a Deadly Sin for Nissan, that would probably be the drawn out comedy of errors called the Leopard. This is the story of how the Japanese conglomerate created a nameplate they didn’t need or know what to do with, but kept making for four generations anyway. Diminishing returns and a forest of red flags were repeatedly ignored, causing the sea of red ink that gradually swallowed the carmaker. Mixed metaphors aside, the best part of this disaster is that it’s a pretty nice car, despite everything.
Nissan is the Japanese carmaking world’s eternal number two. By that, I don’t mean they’re a shit company, I mean that Toyota was always the top banana, as far as passenger cars are concerned. And Nissan/Datsun were usually playing second fiddle. On occasion though, Toyota were beaten to the punch by the number two. Or at least, that’s what it looked like.
Throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, the higher reaches of the range was populated by a variety of Crowns for Toyota and Cedrics / Glorias for Nissan. These were the heyday of those nameplates: in the ‘70s especially, the body variants (saloon, two- and four-door hardtops, van / wagon) got pretty numerous. Both carmakers fancied turning the coupés into their own thing. This time around, Nissan got the jump on Toyota though and let loose the Leopard in late 1980, six months before before the Toyota Soarer appeared.
Herding Leopards – top: F30 (1980-86); middle: F31 (1986-92); bottom: JY32 (1992-96)
The first generation (F30) Leopard was quite a different animal. Technically, Nissan made their new luxury coupé using a Bluebird platform and a Skyline’s straight-six. They even made two models: a two-door coupé that clearly took over from the Cedric/Gloria, and a saloon… Wonder why they felt they needed one of those. Never mind, it worked: Nissan sold over 70,000 units. The second Leopard (F31), now that was a big luxury coupé and nothing else, using R31 Skyline bones. It sold decently (under 40,000 units), but the Soarer was still way ahead. Changing tack again, Nissan made generation three into an odd pillared sedan called Leopard J. Ferie (as in Jour Férié, French for “bank holiday”). It was based on the Y32 Cedric/Gloria/Cima, but was designed by and for Infiniti as the J30. Even more strangely, the JDM version was available with a V8 that the US version never got. The interior was cramped, the styling dubious and the value added highly questionable. Leopard number three was a huge flop in Japan: less than 8000 punters were convinced.
As far as the fourth generation was concerned, Nissan determined that a bit of a course-correction would be useful. The Leopard remained a one-body model, but now the body was to be that oh-so-‘90s Japanese oddity, the “pillared hardtop” sedan, with its pointless but elegant frameless glass and thin B-pillar.
The basis for the JY33 Leopard was, as hinted at by its internal code, the Y33 Cedric/Gloria (top row) and the related FY33 Cima (bottom row, also known as the Infiniti Q45). Essentially, the Leopard was more closely related to the Cedric/Gloria, as it shared that model’s cabin, dash, greenhouse, engine and transmission. The Cima’s V8 was no longer available on the Leopard, as that did not do the previous generation any favours. The Cima’s front and rear design, though, were seemingly pasted on the Cedric/Gloria body to produce the Leopard.
1996 Nissan Leopard (JY33) brochure excerpt
The result is pretty handsome, truth be told. It has a little more substance than the Cedric/Gloria Y33, and a little more grace than the Cima. The range was divvied up in four trim levels; our feature car is an XV, so it has the turbocharged engine and Nissan’s patented HICAS four-wheel steering system, but lacks the XV-G’s fancier rear seating appointments.
Still, looks pretty nice back there. Decent legroom, for one thing – especially compared to the previous Leopard. The car’s hefty size makes for a pretty comfortable cabin, though the pseudo-hardtop does rob the rear passengers of a fair amount of headroom compared to the Cima/Q45.
Up front, we find a Cedric/Gloria dashboard with extra “wood” and a leather-wrapped autobox lever, just to give the Leopard a more animalistic feel, I suppose.
One cannot imagine that they were channeling anything else but Jaguar when they came up with this name back in 1980, though the end product is pretty far from a Coventry cat. Even the original Cima got closer to the target than this limp Leopard, which has more of a (Mercury) Bobcat feel to it than any other feline-themed car out there. And there are quite a few.
I’m not being entirely fair with that Bobcat gag. All cars had a VQ or VG series V6, but in different states of tune and between 2 and 3 liters in displacement. Our feature car, being a higher trim, has a 270hp 3-litre DOHC V6 under the hood, though there was no way for that power to reach the rear wheels via anything but a 4-speed auto.
There was an AWD version launched in late 1997 with a turbo 2.5 litre RB straight-6, but very few were made. It really did not suit the car’s character that well. It’s a Leopard after all, not a cheetah. A chunky cat with a lot of purr, but not that much of a bite.
It was getting difficult for Nissan to justify the Leopard’s continued existence. Making a slightly different and more expensive Cedric / Gloria hardtop did not amount to much excitement in a depressed and overcrowded luxury car market, even as the economy continued to tank. The Cima had a V8. The Cedric / Gloria had tradition. What did the Leopard have?
It didn’t matter anyway. The Renault deal in early 1999 meant that things were going to change over at Nissan. And up for the chop, along with many other loss-making or superfluous nameplates, was the now very much endangered feline. The Y33 platform was running out of time anyway and the new Y34 Cedric/Gloria was launched in the summer of that year did not factor in a Leopard version. Nissan had enough left over stock to last well into the year 2000 in any case, but the Leopard never made it past its second decade and into the 21st Century. This cat, dear Dr Schrödinger, was most definitely dead.
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It would be interesting to explore in greater detail the background and causes of Nissan’s severe financial difficulties in 1999 prior to its alliance with Renault during this period.
As for the later Nissan Leopard, quite like the looks of it as Nissans in the late 80s to 90s were pretty underrated IMO and just needed a Pininfarina touch-up / rebody as was achieved at Peugeot.
I missed the write-up on the original FPY or so it seemed, so I followed your link. That car looks very much like a mid 90s Buick RoadMaster.
As for what happened with the Leopard, obviously a case of Nissan slicing their market share into thinner and thinner slices with an ever expanding model range. Considering the size of the Japanese car market, I am quite surprised that they had so many different dealer outlets and such a plethora of models.
I love the first generations Leopards (F30), partly because they look more lithe and aggressive (almost Skyline-esque) than the later models. I’ve never seen any private imports in Australia.
If my memory serves me correct, the F30 was based on the Laurel platform, not the Bluebird (unless they were the same thing anyway at that time).
Looks like 1997 Jaguar XJ. Not the real one, but an alternate universe one where they stuck with Taurus style and ended with the XJ we have today.
There are more than enough of the later Leopards in NZ but early models have been and gone, its almost like Nissan threw their parts bin in the air and assembled what survived the landing then hoped people liked the result, fanbois go berserk over turbo RB anything here so there is a used market and I did see a much slowered Leopard recently with extra fins and gills, there cant have been enough room in the new generic one style body range after the Renault merger.
This looks like a direct predecessor to what was sold in the US as the Infiniti M45:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-capsule-2003-infiniti-m45-the-closest-thing-to-an-american-style-v8-four-door-hardtop-in-a-long-time/
Apparently the M45 was a Cedric/Gloria but modified especially for the US to take the 4.5L V8, since the Cedric/Gloria only had the V6 in Japan.
I too thought this looked like an Infiniti but could not place it; thank you for identifying which one!
Sad story aside, I think the fourth generation was a handsome car. It illustrates where the Maxima could have gone if not for the disastrous 1995 “redesign”.
Looks just like my 2000’s Crown Vic… but with gas filler door on the wrong side… from the write up, sounds like it is smaller, though… and, of course, I have a V8…
I had no idea this car even existed until seeing one in a photo a Japanese e-friend posted on Facebook last month, outside a model shop. Turned out it was his car. White, just like this one (and probably most of them).
That first Leopard was a real stunner for the time. But it’s like Nissan didn’t know how to follow it up, but was strangely averse to dropping the nameplate. The second-gen coupe was pleasant but not distinctive; from what you say Nissan had created room for it in the range, so it had a purpose, kind of. The third-gen sedan was just plain weird, at a time when Nissan styling seemed to be floundering between eggs and boxes; the Bluebird of the time was similarly afflicted with a strange curvy butt. This fourth model was inoffensive – but did Nissan need another ‘full-size’ inoffensive faux-hardtop sedan in their lineup? Seemingly not.
Tamiya and LS once did models of the first Leopard. The second and third generation Leopards are also available in scale; yes, even the weird J. Ferie, and no, I don’t have one. The fact that there’s no kit of this fourth gen sedan tells me a fair bit about the public perception of the car. No image. Unnecessary.
As luck would have it, there’s a Y33-platform model on my workbench at the moment. I could swap parts between several kits and build a JY33 Leopard – but why? That pretty much sums up this car: why? Even my JY33-driving e-friend hasn’t built one.
Well, the head lights came straight from this guy.
As usual with most things JDM these ended up here. Back in the heyday of the late 1980’s and early 90’s when anything and everything was coming in the F30 wasn’t a rare sight, but certainly wasn’t common either. As usual many more sedans than coupes. I quite liked the shape of the coupe, but found the 4-doors proportions a bit awkward, they seemed to carry their weight to the rear, with a short rear deck, akin to the early 80’s bustle-back American cars. Almost hatch-back like in proportion. There was a red/grey two tone one sitting in my neighbour’s back yard for a time back in the 90’s, no doubt broken and rapidly rusting. It must be over 20 years since I saw one here.
The early days of JDM imports here were not well supported by the dealer networks, who saw the flood of imported cars as a threat, not an opportunity. Consequently supply of parts and repair information could be difficult. In today’s connected world we take it for granted, but even as recently as the early 2000’s getting information could be difficult, even if the distributors had cottoned on to the opportunity for parts sales. Perhaps when I have the inspiration and time I’ll write a piece on the evolution of the NZ automotive industry in these years and the impacts of the JDM import trade. Not sure that anyone would be interested though.
Anyway, back on topic… I can’t recall seeing a single F31 here in NZ, perhaps they were just too expensive compared to their contemporary Skyline coupes and 300Z’s that were quite popular. Their closest direct competitor the Toyota Soarer was seen here less than rare, but not common numbers.
Then to the j’ferie… to me these looked like a U13 Bluebird (Altima to you up there on the other side of the Pacific) that had been left too long to rise. All blown up and saggy. A few were around here, no doubt due to the appeal of a V-8, but again, not too common. They took the ’90s amorphous blob shape to the extreme, a style that Mazda managed much better with the Sentia and MS-8, which were much more popular here.
And the final Y33 Leopard (which I would say is probably the most attractive, if rather bland) wasn’t exceedingly rare here a few years ago, you’d see one every few weeks, but haven’t seen one for a while. As they aged they got bought by the usual young men and used as drift hacks.
Overall, as others and the original author have said, this vehicle was an answer to a question that no-one really asked, a model looking for a niche. I could argue that the F31 at least had a reason to exist as a more direct competitor against the Soarer, and perhaps should have continued down that line more successfully than as a sedan, but I’m not sure that there was really room there either, with the Skyline and Z coupes. Regardless it would have been put to the sword when the V35 and onward Skylines moved in to that space.