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From the CCC: an N13 Nissan EXA


I'm quite taken with this late '80s Nissan EXA N13 on two counts.  Firstly, it's in really, really good nick, appearing to be in almost showroom condition and, secondly, as a concept, its design was very clever.


Reference to Wikipedia reveals that today's example, a second gen EXA - aka the NX in the USA - was penned by Nissan Design International in San Diego, California, incorporating styling cues from the contemporary Pathfinder / Terrano 4WD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_EXA, accessed 08 JAN 23).  These design elements are most obvious when the triangular rear side windows of both vehicles are compared but aren't quite noteworthy enough for me to bother finding a photo to illustrate the similarities.



However, it’s not the car’s looks that impress me, although I do quite like the EXA's aesthetics.  To my mind, it is its super-convertibility - achieved by swapping lightweight roof and other panels - that is so admirable, being configurable as a fully open roadster (?), a T-top, a coupe, and a two-door wagon / shooting brake type arrangement, although we didn't get this last option in Australia.  It truly was a proto-Transformer toy of a car!


Its design and execution were a big step up from the first iteration of the EXA, the N12, which was a Pulsar-based turbo notch-back coupe apparently made of tin foil and sticky tape.  It shared all its go-faster bits with the Pulsar ET Turbo, except the pretty much essential rear disc brakes, and was, to put it mildly, an ill-mannered, unsophisticated brat of a thing that would torque-steer the steering wheel out of your hands and had nothing in the way of handling niceties.  So, yes, it was a hoot to drive!


There was a third version of the EXA but when it arrived Down Under, it had taken the name of the American branch of the family, adopting the NX moniker.  Like the car featured here, there was no turbo but the engine had been replaced with a twincam rather than the SOHC fitted to the brutal first series. 



Although I never got to drive an NX - or the second series EXA, for that matter - I did spend an afternoon in the former and thought that it was a very pleasant car indeed, by which I mean that it was nicely put together and would no doubt make many a hairdresser very happy.  Like so many cars of the late '80s and '90s, they're as rare as teddy bear faeces these days.  



Here are a couple of links also featuring the EXA that you may find interesting, be it in a hairdresser kind of way or not:

https://jalopnik.com/nissan-pulsar-mg-f-alfa-romeo-2000-berlina-the-dopes-1849802797


https://youtu.be/kGAUD23NKr4 .





U M P H


(uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com.au.)


iPhone images from the Chief Canberra Correspondent.





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