Clunkbucket ran into Maria on the way to Santa Clara, when she inquired why some goofball was taking pictures of her car. After an assurance that our goofball credentials were of the highest clearance, Maria told us that she was in fact the original owner, and that even though her sons and daughters drive BMW’s and Mercedes, she maintains her Datsun is a better car. She also said there are no plans whatsoever for selling or cashing in the coupe. The Nissan 200SX was also known as the Nissan Silvia. An 1800 LSE-X Silvia featured 135hp in 1979, and was an early player in a trend of rear-wheel drive and turbo boost that ran through the turbocharger era of the eighties and early nineties.
The Silvia turbo was not available stateside, but was a popular car in Japan for most of the same reasons as the Ford Mustang Maria used to own on the way to her Nissan 200SX. Rear wheel drive. Relative light weight. Reasonably low cost. Add a turbocharger or a V8, and this simple but fun to drive formula just can’t lose. Reliability over the course of 27 years of operation is an added bonus. “It’s a good car, and doesn’t give me any trouble”, said Maria.
God bless that woman.
Amidst all the spindoctored rubbish lately about how the economy benefits from the wanton destruction of old cars before their time, here is a woman who knows what’s up. Here is someone who proves, without a doubt, that there are still some people out there in the world who understand that a car is an *investment* and should be cared for accordingly.
Stunning specimen. Original owner points take it over the top, imo.
Good for Maria this is a good car hope it last forever. It at least looks like it so far. On a side note we could do with a front view of the car too.
Good for her – another benefit of living in a dry warm climate, you don’t have to replace your car
it seems ever, the financial savings are huge! I can’t bear to think about what is going into that damn program in the warm dry states. Here we have mostly ruined minivans and Explorers. Maria if you read this, keep that car forever! Its unique and you’ll never get another! I hope it runs forever.
‘One careful lady owner’. Awesome.
There actually were turbocharged 200 sx’s sold in the US during the 1980’s. They were the S12 chassis cars with the optional CA18ET engine mated to a FS5W71C transmission. These were not the good turbo engines used in the later S13, S14 and S15 cars, but rather a variant of the single cam version of the CA engine. The CA18DET was the first of the decent turbo engines used in the S13 180sx/Silvia, but they later gave way to the SR20DET. Oddly enough, the CA18DE WAS sold here in the Nissan Pulsar, but not the turbocharged CA18DET.
As for keeping cars forever, I have a 1979 AMC Spirit I have owned since 1989, a 1985 Cutlass Supreme I have owned since 1993, and my daily driver is a 1998 Nissan Frontier with a KA24DE/5 speed that I bought new. It’s been used to deliver pizza since the day it was new and has 327,000 miles on it as of tonight. I have no plans to replace it as it still runs good, has no rust and I live in a state with no vehicle inspections of any kind. I am hoping to get 500k out of the original KA engine. Older Nissans were killable only by rust or amazing levels of abuse. It’s sad that this is no longer true.
There’s no way this would be eligible for CARS/C for C as it’s older than ’84 and gets better than 18mpg.
That said, California FTW!
Our biggest problem is portions of the body that leak/trap water during the rainy winters. Solution? Move to LA, where it rains ~5 days a year!
Great looking car, and glad it has such a loving owner.
Here’s its more wild sister in action: Nissan Silvia Turbo Super Silhouette Video