A majestic and super rare Nissan President limousine, seen in a small car shop in Beijing in December 2017. This shop also owned a W208 Mercedes-Benz, so they really liked their big sedans down there.
The President was in a reasonable shape. It still looked majestic as it should, but it was clearly in need of a lot of love and work. The car stood alone in a large showroom, covered with dust and other dirt. Happily, it seemed largely complete, with all the badges still attached to the vehicle, and badges it had a lot. The chrome looked okay under the dust, and the light units were clean. Both mirrors were still steady on their fenders. All in all a car worth saving.
Duct tape saves the Nissan badge on the bonnet. A nice badge badge indeed, with an N on a shield flanked by pillars on an orange background.
The President was Nissan’s flagship sedan, marketed from 1966 until 2010. The car we have here is a second generation President, designated H250, and produced from 1973 until 1990. That’s 17 years for one generation!
There was a facelift in 1982. It didn’t change much, really. Most notable change was the replacement of the round headlights with square lights. The car that I met was a original pre-facelift example.
The little white bulges on each side of the bonnet are external indicator tattle-tales, small warning lights that light up when the driver is using his indicator, see this brilliant explanation. Japanese car makers used tattle-tales on their luxury sedans until the early 1990’s.
Only a very few Nissan Presidents were shipped outside of Japan. Most ended up at Japanese embassies around the world. And like the W208 Mercedes, the President used to belong to an embassy in Beijing as well. Sadly, the man I spoke to didn’t know for sure which embassy, but I bet it was the Japanese. I don’t think any other embassy would have such a car. It was the first President I had ever seen in China, and it was left-hand drive!
The car was loaded with badges and logos. This one is on the boot lid.
This very pretty one is located on the rear fender. The font is the same, but larger.
On the side of the light unit was a Nissan N logo with a black N on a blue-red background.
On the C-pillar a Nissan N logo in silver on a dark red background with silver decoration on each side.
The boot was enormous.
The second generation Nissan President was powered by a ‘Y44E’ 4.4 liter 16-valve V8 gasoline engine. Output was 200 hp and 343 Nm, which was very impressive for the time. The engine was mated to a 3-speed automatic gearbox. The shifter was mounted on the steering column. The President was a rear-wheel drive car.
The interior was a bit messy and very dusty. It was used as a storage space for all sort of parts, some of them for the Nissan, some of them clearly not. But it still had the original cloth seats, panels, trim, and steering wheel. The front bench has three seats, one driver one passenger and one smaller one in the middle.
The leg room was enormous, with two luxurious super wide seats. There was some space in the middle but I don’t think it was meant as a seat.
The steering wheel was huge, and rather basic for such a high-end car. The speedometer went up to 180 kilometers per hour.
Even though the wheel itself wasn’t very impressive, the Nissan badge surely was. A silver N on a shield decorated with leaves. It is bizarre how many different Nissan logo’s this car has.
A Japanese text on the inside of the passenger door.
The column-mounted shifter in low position. That’s park, I presume. The keys were in the keyhole, ready to roll.
The air-con unit.
A better look at the unusual front bench. The driver seat is separated from the rest of the bench. There are two luggage nets and one luggage compartment. The passenger seat seems wider than the driver seat, even without the middle seat. Follow me? So I guess the passenger seat can probably seat two small fellows, for a total of four.
The windows are huge, making for a light and airy cabin. Note the piece of equipment between the two back seats, at about the height of the headrests. That is…
… a brilliantly cool radio cassette player. One of the most interesting audio systems I have ever seen on a car of this age. It has a cassette deck and a radio, a jack for a ‘head ear phone’, and even a separated ‘pause’ button on the top-left. On the lower panel, to the right, a control unit for the air-con in the rear compartment. This really was a very luxurious car.
It was huge too: 5280/1795/1460, with a 2850 wheelbase. It wasn’t extremely heavy for so much car, with a curb weight of some 1650 kilo.
The alloy wheels seemed as old as the car and they have a period design. But I am not sure these are the original wheels. I haven’t seen any photos of a H250 with similar examples. Doesn’t matter that much, as they looked great under the President.
The man at the shop told me they were planning to restore the President. But, as with the Mercedes, parts were hard too find. I guess the only place to find parts for these cars is Japan. That should be doable, there is quite a large JDM community in Beijing, with fanatic enthusiasts keeping older Japanese cars alive.
Everything is so brilliantly complex on this car. Check the light situation: two round headlights in a square frame with a silver decoration in the middle. Below that a twin-indicator unit, with each side in a different shape. Finally, in the bumper we see a comparatively simple fog light.
Well, the bumper needs some work in any way. It likely hit a small pole or such.
The entire area where the shop was went down just a few months later. The shop moved to another area and for a while I exchanged messages with the man I met via WeChat. But after some time there was no response anymore so I am afraid the new shop didn’t fare very well. Fortunately, another contact sent me some photos of the President in yet another location, a year later or thereabout. So hopefully this great Nissan limousine is still safe somewhere in the Chinese capital.