Know this car?
Don't worry about it - it doesn't know you either.
It's a Nissan S-Cargo ('escargot', French for 'snail', geddit?...).
It was one of a series of funky low-volume speciality cars Nissan built in the mid-1980 - early-1990s.
The first was the Be-1, a direct crib off the original Mini, followed by the PAO, and the Figaro (shown below right).
At the time, the Japanese market had a fascination with unique, highly-styled little cars, but it was extremely fickle - a car like any of these would be the hot ride for about six months. Then one morning, everyone woke up and it was all over.
These vehicles were all right-hand drive, and were never imported to North America. So, what's this S-Cargo doing in Milton, or the Figaro in North York?
Long-ish story.
First, Japan has a very stringent used-car inspection program, which makes keeping a car much longer than six years economically unviable, so their value plummets.
Fortunately, it turns out out there are markets elsewhere for unique speciality cars.
And one of those is Canada. As I understand it, Transport Canada allows cars 15 years old or older to be imported even if they don't meet our safety standards, and there are companies which specialize in finding just the car you want, and shipping it here.
Not just cuties like these, but also Japanese sports cars we were never allowed to own when they were new. In fact, one of these companies, 'Japanoid.com' in New Westminster B.C., has as their slogan what you see in the title of this post: “Japanese cars too cool for North America”.
Things like the early Nissan Skyline and GT-R, or early Mitsu Evo rally cars. Personally, I'd love to get hold of either (or both) a Honda Beat or Bulldog Turbo...
Now, you have to put up with dodgy parts and service availability, not to mention the rigours of right-hand drive on our roads - a bummer at toll booths or drive-thrus.
It also makes passing on two-lane roads a bit of an adventure (Quebec, so I'm told, recently banned the importation of right-hand drive cars, presumably for safety reasons).
But it sure makes parallel parking a snap.
And if you're looking at promoting your business, like Diamond Jett is doing with the S-Cargo, well, it's an ideal mobile billboard.
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