Nissan isn’t really doing well. This isn’t exactly news to anyone who has been watching the company for the past, oh, decade or so, and it’s also not a problem that Nissan alone is having to deal with. Lots of carmakers aren’t doing so hot right now. Hell, look at pretty much everything Stellantis owns! Would anyone say that Chrysler is thriving right now? They make one damn car. How about Lancia? Maserati? Those companies are all pretty much hollow shells of the glory they once were, and there are some that would argue that Nissan is, if not quite there yet, heading down that path. But you know what the difference is?
Nissan may actually be worth saving.
Now look, I’m not trying to disparage a marque like, say, Lancia, which has decades of incredible and passionate and exuberant cars behind it, cars that you encounter parked at a car show and you look at it, and for a moment time stops, and it’s just you and that exquisite machine with a strange flag stuck on it.
Lancia has such an incredible and storied history – the first unibody car, the Lambda, incredible rally cars like the Stratos, accessible and usable but still wildly lovely and fun-to-drive cars like the Fulvia and the Delta Integrale, and so much more. But recent Lancia is all just re-badged city cars and hatchbacks. The Lancia everyone still thinks of is long gone. Lancia could stop making new cars tomorrow and it would hardly matter, because in every significant way “real” Lancias haven’t been in production for a long, long time.
Nissan isn’t like Lancia, though. Nissan deserves to be saved. It’s not like Nissan had a golden age that they’ve been riding the threadbare laurels of for decades; Nissan is a company that has proven, time and time again, that it can do something that may be one of the most wonderful things a carmaker can do: surprise us.
Just take a minute and think about this; I’m not talking about a carmaker that only makes “exciting” or exotic or whatever cars, like a Lotus or Bugatti or something, I mean a company that manages to crank out thousands and thousands of good, everyday cars and then, seemingly out of nowhere, comes up with something really special.
How many times has Nissan done that? Think about the Z-Car, for example. Around 1969, Nissan was mostly making economy sedans and pickup trucks, and then they came out with an affordable sports car that had the the look and feel of a Jaguar E-Type but with the advantage of being able to put more miles on the road than on the bed of a tow truck.
I suppose as far as surprises go, a sports car isn’t really a shocking one, but when Nissan does that, they tend to do it right. You could take the GT-R as another example of this; who was expecting 2007 Nissan, makers of minivans and Altimas and Sentras, to come up with something as potent and bonkers as the GT-R?
It’s hard to overestimate the impact of the GT-R. This was a car that cost a literal fraction of competing cars from Porsche and Ferrari and Lamborghini, and yet managed to beat them in so many ways. This is a car that started at under $100,000 and set Nurburgring records in stock form, with Porsche getting so bent out of shape about it that they accused Nissan of cheating. The GT-R changed the sports car world, and it came from a place no one expected.
Nissan built the GT-R. Just let that sink in a little. Nissan. And they also built the incredible Skyline GT-Rs that came before. NISSAN.
Nissan surprises in weirder ways, too. I’m not just talking about taking absurd styling risks in cars like the Juke – though it’s worth remembering Nissan absolutely did that, too – but I mean genuinely strange and wonderful and surprising things like Nissan’s whole Pike Factory experiment.
You remember the Pike cars, right? Nissan just decided, what the hell, let’s take some proven platforms and drivetrains and clothe them in deeply, delightfully weird bodies and interiors, and sell those cars as limited run “boutique cars.” And they were all amazing! Each one of these absurd little cars has become an icon in its own right, with all of the charm of dozens of classic iconic cars mixed together into one delicious car-shake.
Even better, they’re all actually usable cars! I know multiple people with Pike cars now, S-Cargos and Figaros, and yes, even me, with my Pao acting as my daily driver.
That little car has proven to be one of the most reliable cars I’ve ever owned, and that’s after hitting two deer in the damn thing. I love it. What other carmaker has done something like this, at any time? Made a whole sub-brand of affordable, usable, and reliable limited run idiosyncratically designed cars? They didn’t have to do this at all. They could have made one of these models, and it would have been amazing. But the Pike Factory was more than that, and I’m not sure any other mainstream carmaker has ever really matched that remarkable experiment.
Even after the Japanese Bubble era that likely was a big factor in making the Pike cars possible, Nissan still made surprises happen. Take the Murano Cross Cabriolet that we’ve just been having so much fun with:
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The CrossCab is a car that makes precisely zero sense; a two-door convertible version of a mass-market AWD crossover was not on any product planner’s radar until Nissan decided that this improbable thing should exist. I’d suspect that if you took all the money the CrossCab made Nissan and added $5 to that amount, you’d probably only have to borrow about $3 to $4 if you wanted to buy a Whopper with cheese. But that didn’t stop Nissan, because that’s what Nissan does.
Or, hell, I just remembered the Leaf! Tesla gets all the credit, but it’s worth remembering that Nissan was really the first to bring a modern, affordable practical electric car to market with the Leaf in 2010. Another surprise.
It’s not all that Nissan does, of course. These surprises and gleefully weird cars and world-beating sportscars just punctuate what they mostly do, the gleaming golden corn kernels in the healthy, solid stool of the company. What Nissan usually does is make admirably competent and unassuming cars. Remember our 375,000-mile ex-NYC taxi? That was a Nissan, and it proved to be shockingly reliable even with a CVT transmission everyone was sure would explode on us somewhere in the middle of America.
But it didn’t. In fact, that little NV200 (a great taxi, I might add — efficient and well-packaged — a far better design than the Crown Victoria) managed to get all the way across the continent with out any major mechanical issues whatsoever. After years and years of hard service as a taxi. It was the very definition of a workhorse, and fundamentally, that’s what Nissan makes.
Along the same lines, Nissan feels like the only company that still even pretends to give a brace of BMs about the low-end of the car market. While so many other carmakers are abandoning their entry-level options, Nissan just recently announced an all-new version of their third cheapest car (which is still cheaper than many carmaker’s cheapest car), the Sentra, and Nissan remains one of the very few carmakers in America to offer a new car starting at under $20,000, the Versa.
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[Ed Note: The 2009 5-speed Versa was insanely cheap and actually really good, as I show above. -DT]
They’ve always been like this (I’ve even brought it up before), making inexpensive cars that managed to retain some level of fun and dignity. That was practically the whole ethos of their former incarnation as Datsun, with dirt-cheap but fun and efficient cars like the Honey Bee:
…or the legendary B-210:
Some of these inexpensive cars were even genuinely interesting and happily strange in their own right, like this Cherry Coupé: 
[Ed Note: This is not an exhaustive list. The 510, the Fairlady, the XTerra, the Frontier, the Titan — there are lots of great Nissans from the distant and recent past. Heck, even some modern Nissans aren’t bad, with quite a few coming in under $30K at a time when affordable cars are few and far between. -DT].
Nissan gives a shit about inexpensive cars still. It’s part of their DNA, and I think this is incredibly important. And I haven’t even really mentioned Nissan’s trucks or off-road vehicles, but those are a big factor, too.
I’m not under any illusions about Nissan. In fact, I’d never even thought of myself as a Nissan fan, generally, because I’m not really someone who gets enamored by brands, but more by individual cars themselves. But as I started to think about some of the significant cars I’ve interacted with positively this year – the NV200 taxi, the CrossCab, my Pao – I realized that they’re all Nissans, and all surprisingly and excitingly different, and have some really divergent characters and strengths.
Current Nissan is not in a great place. Other than the admirable fact that they offer some genuinely affordable options, their lineup isn’t a standout in any real way, and just based on the cars they currently offer, if they went away tomorrow, it would hardly matter, as there’s little they’re bringing to the table that isn’t already there, and often better. And their current miserable fortunes reflect this.
Lots of people seem to agree with this grim assessment. Take our pals over at The Old Site, for example. who quoted a Bloomberg report on the company:
“The automaker’s operating profit plunged last quarter by an alarming 99%, leading management to lower their outlook for the year ending in March by 12% to ¥500 billion ($3.5 billion). The company also trimmed its full-year sales target to 3.65 million units.
Equity investors are clearly concerned — Nissan’s shares are down 27% this year — and credit analysts are starting to pen reports with alarming headlines. S&P Global cut Nissan’s credit rating to junk in March of last year.”
Nissan’s premium brand, Infiniti, isn’t doing any better, as reported by Automotive News:
“Financial data obtained by Automotive News shows that Infiniti stores had an average net loss of $79,581 in the first nine months of 2024, compared with a profit of $421,169 a year earlier. Dealership return on sales fell to minus 0.3 percent in the first nine months, from 1.3 percent in 2023.”
If you prefer your doomsaying about Nissan in video form, there’s plenty of options there, too:
and
All of this is being noticed by regular people, even Nissan fans, as well; this is from Reddit’s r/Nissan group, where one user summarizes Nissan’s plight with somber clarity:
“The vast majority of the line up is completely uninspiring. For example, the VQ v6 they use in most of their v6 powered models is 30 years old now. It’s showing it’s age, even with the various updates, the other manufacturers have better options. They have the wonderful VR series, but they’re only putting them in top line vehicles. They need to trickle that down into the lower ranges.
They have no viable hybrids, they aren’t even doing an eco-boost kinda thing using smaller engines with turbos for better economy and usually more fun to boot.”
Uninspiring. That kind of just sums it all up.
But here’s the thing: It doesn’t have to be that way. I don’t think I realized it until I sat down to actually write this, but I believe in Nissan. They’re a company that has proven themselves, time and time again, to not just deliver, but to deliver things we didn’t even realize we wanted or needed. Nissan fails plenty, sure, but I think that’s what made them great. They were a company that made practical, useful cars and yet still took the time to take risks, to try something unexpected, to fail, sure, but also sometimes to succeed, wildly. Or some mix of both.
Nissan is saving because I believe those qualities are still in there, somewhere, buried under forgettable crossovers and SUVs. I think a re-born Nissan could be one that treats lower-income buyers with dignity and respect and gives them honestly good and engaging options, and still sometimes pulls something wild and crazy out of their ass.
I want that Nissan back. That Nissan, if it really is still in there, deserves it.
I love the S-Cargo so much.
That is all.
Yeah, as far as Nissan goes I like the Skyline GT-R, the hardbody trucks, and the 90’s Maximas were really great. So nothing new at all…I’d still at least like for them to stick around though, there’s no point in losing them
I like (prefer) the Datsun name too… maybe it’s due to my age (there was no ‘Nissan’ in America during my formative years) or perhaps it just seems more retro/kitsch/friendly to me. Also, Nissan reminds me of both Nissei and Nissin …the former being a corporation and also a term used to describe second-gen Japanese immigrants to the Americas, and the latter being another company, rightly famous for making Cup Noodles. Datsun is just Datsun, and I like it enough that I’d advocate it being used for any Datsun/Nissan product with a base US$ MSRP of under 30K though I’m sure marketing folks at Nissan would disagree.
BTW, I just learned (or knew and already forgot, which is just as likely) that the current/new Nissan Micra, which is only available as an EV, is essentially identical to the famed, vaunted, and highly praised Renault 5 EV, with the main differences being the head/tail lights and a more conventional looking dashboard/interior. I think I actually prefer the appearance of the Micra, though both cars are great, and both come in actual colors. 9 second 0-60, 2something-3something miles of range (two battery sizes to chose from, at least on the Micra), a small footprint but with a usable hatch/boot. Most importantly (IMO) both cars have some charm and personality.
I wish that Nissan would bring it to America, provided that it could be sold profitably while still being meaningfully less than the new (third gen) Leaf… even just $3K less might sell Micras, for those who don’t want a fake SUV/Crossover that the upcoming Leaf has morphed into. Not everyone hates hatchbacks!
Never going to happen of course, what with American preferences (bigger always better), unpredictable tarrifs, etc…
Misc. 1- you forgot the Sentra SE-R. 2- The VQ was rated the best V 6 for 10 years in Wards Auto World. 3- I think the frontier is the best pick up made. 4- I like the Datsun name. I dont know why.
No love for the Cube? (Disclaimer: I’ve never ridden in or driven a Cube, I just like seeing them.)
There was a point where any Nissan was my preferred rental car; they tended to be a little less meh than some of the typical offerings, with slightly more interesting (to me) interiors and acceptable performance. But the last few I’ve rented didn’t have much to set them apart from their competitors. Still, given the brand’s history, it would be a shame if they don’t make it. It wouldn’t surprise me though.
I have driven a Cube, and liked it roughly a million times better than the Versa. It was weird, practical, and kind of fun.
I also drove a Cube, with a manual transmission no less. I liked it, though it didn’t seem as comfortable and comodious as the 2nd gen Scion xB, or as sporty as the Kia Soul (back in the hamster days). Still, it was nice, and seemed like it’d be ideal for around-town driving.
Whenever I see a Cube on the street these days (not that often, sadly) I’m always sure to give the driver a big smile and thumbs-up, which they always appreciate.
To hell with boring cars! 🙂
Toyota is the “dependable” OEM with a couple of really good sports cars, and the greatest midsized truck ever. Honda is the “dependable, but for smart people” OEM that has made the best FWD sports cars ever. Mazda is the “emotionally appealing” OEM with wacky rotary powered things and the best small sports car ever. Subaru is the “REI crowd” OEM with many mild offroading but daily livable cars. I could go on, but Nissan is the “low cost” OEM that seems to take the most risks in different markets and has had some serious hits. The RB powered Skylines are legends and in most racing formats other than 1/4 mile drag racing, they are better than the 2jz supras. The GTR truly did change the sports car world when it dropped. I wanted to hate it and jumped on the “exploding transmissions” bandwagon mostly because I loved the look of the R32,33,34 so much. But I have come full circle on this, its a beast. The 350Z is still one of the most stunning cars I have ever seen. It looked like a concept car when it dropped. I do hope nissan turns things around.
Nissan dug their own grave using the CVT transmission as a shovel.
Where’s Jatco when we need him? This is heresy!
Nissan has at times had some of the best vehicles in their segment. The Frontier is a wildly underrated small(er) truck. The XTerra was a fantastic SUV and not continuing to produce it is amongst their worst decisions. The 350/370 and current Z car have been either top tier sports cars or long in the tooth but still good depending on which year you pick. But Nissan has also produced some of the most worst powertrains of the last 25 years sold in North America. Like Isuzu and Mitsubishi, Nissan deserves whatever fate befalls them.
You believe in a company that is dead, and everyone who worked at it is dead or retired.
Government and PE have combined to destroy any “fun” in the industry. It’s too expensive to experiment these days, and PE isn’t interested in innovation even if it was cheap.
I love my old Nissan Figaro, had for 7 1/2 years now, with almost nothing going wrong, and never one breakdown under use.
Cant really think of anything they’ve done, since they launched the first real usable electric car, the Leaf, in 2010 or there about. Oh, that and fired their CEO for fraud (or something?)
So I need Nissan to impress me again with something astounding. Guess a lot of people feel that way, since it’s going bad for them?
A lot of other brands are the same place in my head, so the situation is not unique at all.
“one of the most reliable cars I’ve ever owned”
LOL, says the man who owned a Reliant Scimitar, Yugo, VWs, and a Changli.
Gotta agree on Nissan though.
Too influential to die.
Great article! Other than what I read (mostly here), I only really know the Nissans that made it to the US.
My first car was a used Datsun 510 (sadly a wagon, which didn’t have the IRS the sedans did). Once sorted out it was a lot of fun. Even without IRS. And I could tune it in my college parking lot when something under the hood drifted out of place. Usually the distributor or the points inside.
A classmate, from a family with money, had a 240Z that he modded modestly and it was beautiful. That inline 6-cylinder sounded so sweet when given the beans. And you or the Reddit poster, are so right that the VQ needs to go. It didn’t sound great in the 350Z my brother-in-law had. Actually, I didn’t like that Z at all.
I later had a 720-series KingCab and I think it was every bit as good as the Toyotas of that era. It just shrugged off abuse, like the time I loaded 1500+ pounds of paving stones in the bed and drove it 30 miles that way. And it didn’t seem to mind being flogged on rough dirt roads, either. But it wasn’t tortured on a TopGear episode. 🙁
In the mid-80s, I got to drive around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in a friend’s B-210. Limited to 45 mph. No limits of adhesion there. We were told not to pass the tour bus. But it’s fun to be able to say I have lapped that track. Crossed the narrow strip of bricks that remain from its early days. I didn’t kiss the track and spray milk all over everybody.
There were a lot of perhaps apocryphal stories I read that said the Nissan L series engines were based on some Mercedes inline engine (M180?). And that the L24 was an L16 with two more cylinders. The history, described in this Wikipedia article, might be murkier.
Nissan L engine – Wikipedia
In 1989, when the Maxima came out, they marketed it as the 4DSC–4 Door Sports Car. Nissan even put 4DSC decals on the rear side windows, as I recall. They were quite attractive, but I never got to drive one. I think one of those with a stick would have been a lot of fun. There were a lot of cool cars that came out in the mid-to-late 80s that middle-class people could afford. And being in the US, I probably didn’t know about a quarter of them.
I did a fair amount of work in NYC during the cab transition period, and was so happy when I got one of the NX200 cabs instead of a worn-out former police Crown Vic.
I’ve had a few Nissan rental cars and some were better than the others, (cough Altimas, cough) but the 2024/5 Sentra I had a few weeks ago was a very pleasant and competent car. And very frugal with fuel. If I only had $30K to buy a new car, I wouldn’t be ashamed to have one. But I probably will never buy another new car when there are so many interesting used ones out there.
And I would be sad to see them go.
I couldn’t agree more. They deserve to live.
If only they could convert BAE to cash, that would solve all their problems. But seriously, I think the world is a better place with Nissan in it.
> the gleaming golden corn kernels in the healthy, solid stool of the company
Corn. It’s what makes a Nissan a Nissan.
I had a mid 1990s Sentra and that thing was unkillable. A recent (2024 MY) rental Sentra I drove for a few days was a legitimately nice compact car. And an international CEO who flees justice in an instrument case? That alone deserves saving.
Great read.
I feel like Nissan is already dead. But also the new Nissan equivalent is a company like GWM, making the Oras and Tanks. I know Nissan/Japan fought against being bought out by a Chinese make but I kind of feel like that fits their, for lack of a better term, level of car.
Like nobody expects Nissan to be Toyota, or Infiniti to be Lexus. People always talk about Japanese car reliability but that never really was Nissan(or Mitsubishi for that matter). They had some good cars, but couldn’t match Honda/Toyota for quality/reliability.
And not to say Chinese car makes don’t have quality, but I feel like it wouldn’t besmirch Nissan’s reputation as much if it was Chinese owned, compared to like a Honda type Brand.
It seems kind of like the obvious answer, heck Volvo is already Chinese, and some Buicks, why not Nissan too?
Excluding Jatco CVTs, what reliability problems?
I bought an 08 z with a manual as my first and only new car off the lot. I keep hoping for them to make it. Loved her and will always have a soft have a soft spot for Nissan. The altima 6 with a real transmission was no joke. Sentras power the Mexican taxi fleet.
I’m more of a mazda guy now, love my 3 hatch. And I am making plans for the GR corrola.
When and if they get sold off to India/China, I will be sad. Maybe something will come from the ashes.
You are right about so many cars that Nissan had developed and I know you love your Pao, but I’m sorry I have to stop at the Juke. That thing is so ugly the only way you could improve it is if you shaved its butt and drove it backwards.
But sure Nissan has done some cool stuff and I hope they pull themselves out of the hole
Aesthetics are always very subjective and personal, so to each her own. What I always say about the Juke, however, is that no one who cares about cars should complain about something different making out the factory doors of a major OEM, even if you hate it. Because anything is better than boring sameness.
That last line is my general complaint about the entire auto industry for about the last decade.
I tend to agree. Also, the Juke is so small inside (in back) but I will admit to having thought about getting one, just because it looks so different. Pretty? No. Weirdly appealing? Yes, to me.
It’s almost impossible to find a manual version near me though (SoCal) and I didn’t want the hotted-up Nismo versions because ride quality. Maybe not a car for a lifetime, but really, it’s just a small, lifted, Japanese hatchback. That really can’t be too bad, right? Plus, WEIRD! 😀
Also: the Pao is cute and practical. In fact, there’s not any of the Pike’s Peak cars that I wouldn’t want.
The Juke had character, whether you liked it or not. It’s the fact that such a major automaker would take a risk on a design like that that you gotta appreciate. I’d take it over modern Toyota’s obnoxious design language where even the Rav4 has to look “tough” (it doesn’t, but it’s clearly trying).
The last time I was shopping for a car, i bookmarked a listing for a used Juke NISMO, which I never knew existed until I came across the ad. I never cared for the Juke’s divisive styling much, but ~$13k for 215hp, a six-speed manual, upgraded suspension, Recaro buckets, and a few other factory boy-racer options, coupled with a few styling touches, raised both eyebrows. Sadly, it sold before I had a chance to go check it out, but it sure looked like a fun little rig in the ad.
Man that sounds like it’d be a fun little runabout for sure. And yeah, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a Nismo in person.
You have a point about the RAV4, my wife drives one and I never was a fan of the gaping maw front end. Ours is a hybrid so I have no complaints about an SUV getting near 40 mpg.
Yeah, at least with the Rav4 you can’t see the outside from the inside. If you don’t like the Juke, you still have to see the weird styling from the driver’s seat!
Yup, the Juke makes me want to Puke…what a stupid name too
I think the current Sentra and Versa are decent for what they cost and as mentioned, most other automakers have chosen to abandon affordable small sedans completely. Unfortunately, I really don’t like their CVT, and that’s the only option. A standard automatic would be fine (ala Mazda) or imagine a decent manual (yes, I know there’s just a tiny take rate for them, but just think of all the ‘better than I expected’ reviews to drive traffic to the showrooms, where buyers would take home the torque converter autobox and still feel like they got a decent car for their hard-earned money). I’d also like it if they dressed their small sedan in some homage-to-the-510 boxy clothes like their IDx concept, instead of the very generic angry insect look they’ve used for years.
I want Nissan to survive and thrive not just because they’re produced some inspiring/aspirational cars in the past, but more because they still make cars that people can actually afford, which is become a rarity in these times of almost-$50K average new car prices.
I’ll be the optimist here and say I see the makings of a turnaround already. Of course it could fall apart quickly with a few wrong moves, but here are my thoughts:
* Getting the new Xterra out will be critical
* The new Leaf actually looks really compelling and competes on its own with ICE subcompact crossovers
* I could easily be missing something that makes this impossible, but I gotta think other companies would be interested in contract manufacturing in Nissan’s US factories
* It looks like some steps are being taken to slim Infiniti down and make some “halo-ish” cars. That’s a good move. Or just kill the brand…
* The facelifted Sentra looks good and serves the role
The new Sentra is a legit good car. It’d be on my list if I were shopping.
I fondly remember my 04 Sentra SE-R Spec-V. It was an athletic dork of a car in lovely sunburst yellow, terrible seats, cool badges that I’m not even gonna pretend I didn’t like. I adored that it had SPEC-V in the windshield tint at the top. It was subtle, probably the only subtle thing about it. It hated alternators, and broke often. Taught me a lot about maintaining a car. Even with my other vehicles, that’s the one I put for my birthday car if I can ever spring for a higher membership tier.
If I could have any new Nissan, I’d probably pick, uh. Um. An, uh… 2004 Spec-V.
Counterpoint: No, they are not.
It WAS worth saving.
Now? Maybe they can be broken up and an entry for new, interesting brands to emerge.