• Up for auction at Bring A Trailer this week is an absolute time capsule of a Nissan pickup truck—it even still has the original oil.
• Small pickups from this era were workhorses first, and this one is as basic as they came, with a manual transmission and a 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine.
• There’s no reserve on this auction, which ends on Tuesday, January 10.
For all the stories about Mr. K. (Yutaka Katayama) and his obsession with racing, the Datsun brand established its foothold in the U.S. by selling tiny trucks. The 240Z would come later, and the 510 still has a cult following, but a cheap-to-buy and cheaper-to-run pickup truck was core to Datsun/Nissan’s success into the 1990s. To get a sense of what those vehicles were like, check out this 1987 example up for auction on Bring a Trailer, which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos. This pickup is preserved in astonishingly original condition as if trapped in amber.
This 1987 Nissan Hardbody pickup truck has just 1100 miles on the odometer. This is a bare-bones pickup of the honest sort popular with many a handyman or gardener of the era. It’s a regular-cab model equipped with a fiberglass cap over the cargo bed, some fog lights, a tow package, and that’s about it. Never mind Marty McFly’s fancy Toyota; this pickup is all business, with rear-wheel drive, and a 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine backed by a five-speed manual transmission.
This little pickup isn’t just a useful rig but a snapshot from simpler times. The D21-chassis Nissan pickup was produced from 1986 until 1997, when it was replaced by the Frontier. Like the Toyota, Nissan’s offering was rugged, and it soon picked up the moniker Hardbody, both for its fender-flared looks and for the tough double-walled bed. It was a strong seller for Nissan and, perhaps even more important, provided the underpinnings for the first-generation Pathfinder.
The Hardbody was popular enough to enter popular culture in the oddest way. The 1997 documentary Hands on a Hardbody documents a Texas-based contest where the person who can keep their hand on a Nissan pickup for the longest time—no squatting or leaning—wins the truck. It won the best documentary award at the 1997 Los Angeles Film Festival.
The previous owner of this pickup didn’t have to endure any stunts but simply ordered it new in Colorado as a fishing and camping rig. It didn’t see much use, even on the weekends, and reportedly spent much of its time tucked indoors alongside a collection of vintage Corvettes.
Most of these pickups never got such pampered treatment, and as a result, many rusted away. This one would need an oil change and some new tires if you planned to actually drive it, but for a certain type of collector, it would tuck right in among a collection of vintage Japanese cars. Or heck, maybe Nissan wants to put it in its museum.
If you want to get your hands on this Hardbody, head on over to Bring a Trailer.
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Source: Motor - aranddriver.com
