Guilty Pleasures – The Nissan Bluebird

My love for the humble Nissan Bluebird is steeped in first car nostalgia. The only trouble is, it wasn’t actually my first car. As a matter of fact, I’ve never even owned one. It was the late nineties, I was seventeen years old and all of my friends, myself included, were learning to drive. The first of us to pass just so happened to have a 1988 T72 Nissan Bluebird 1.8GS parked in their driveway at home – an ex-company car that had been passed down through the family over the years. It was this car that gave us our first taste of that ultimate freedom we yearned for as teenagers and even though I hadn’t passed my test at the time, there was still much country lane shenanigans to be had, taking turns behind the wheel. I just remember it being quick (relatively speaking), fun and built like an absolute tank. As somewhat irresponsible youths we gave that car quite the thrashing and it happily took it all in its stride. I even went as far as persuading my brother to buy a jet black one years later that, in my eyes at least, was reminiscent of KITT from Knight Rider, one of the myriad 80s television shows I grew up watching as a kid. Unfortunately for him though the motor was a complete lemon and the car lasted all of two weeks, an experience I might add that did nothing to dampen my fondness for the marque.

Although the Bluebird moniker has been around since the late fifties, the T72 incarnation debuted in the UK in 1987 and was essentially just a face-lifted version of the previous T12 model – a hugely significant vehicle in manufacturing terms, as it was the first car Nissan built in the UK at its Washington plant near Sunderland, now one of the largest car assembly plants in the country. Using parts from Japan it proved that the UK could build cars just as well as the Japanese themselves and paved the way for future UK-based Japanese manufacturing bases. The T72 Bluebird was available in 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0-litre guises and with a five-speed manual or four-speed automatic gearbox. There was the choice of a four-door saloon or five-door hatchback and the cars proved incredibly popular. Renowned for being reliable and robust, they were also exceedingly good at resisting corrosion and many were favoured as taxis, racking up hundreds of thousands of miles with only basic levels of servicing.

It’s boxy looks were dated even by late eighties standards and although there was a turbo-charged version of the 1.8-litre engine there was no performance variant to speak of, nor any motorsport prestige to lean on. The fact of the matter is the Bluebird was a simple, tough family car that you could rely on to get you where you needed to go, with zero drama. It was mechanically predictable too, being front-wheel drive and equipped with MacPherson struts at the front and an independent, semi-trailing arm setup at the rear. Praise wasn’t exactly lavished on the car by motoring journalists at the time and it wasn’t embraced as whole-heartedly by the fleet market as initially hoped. Despite this however, the public spoke and the Bluebird sold well and the reliability and build quality was unmatched by other, concurrent high-volume, UK built cars.

Even though the Bluebird has a history that is arguably way more interesting than the actual car itself, my friend and I still talk about his to this day, over twenty years later. It’s testament to the fact that it truly was a great car and it made quite the impression on me in my formative years. My own first car after passing my test was a woefully underpowered, base-level Peugeot 205 with dodgy synchromesh and it paled in comparison to the mighty Nissan. I still get excited when I pass one on the road, quite a rare site nowadays sadly, as many of them have been snapped up by banger racers thanks to their resilient nature and have subsequently (and literally) been driven into the ground, as well as each other. At the time of writing, there are only six examples listed on Car & Classic.

Owning a Nissan Bluebird today is a tempting prospect. It’s a simple, practical car that was built to last and is a great introduction to classic motoring. That’s if you can find one of course and it’s only a matter of time before the retro-mod crowd sets its sights on the boxy Nissan. I’m a big fan of seeing “boring” eighties and nineties runabouts, the likes of which my parents and my friends’ parents used to drive, given a modern twist and I think the Bluebird is ready for its close-up. Either that or I need to trade my glasses in for ones without the rose tinted lenses.