Nissan Be-1 BK10

Nissan Be-1 (BK10, 1987 to 1988)

Every craze has a patient zero, and for the whole retro-limited-run fashion it is this little thing. Nissan showed the Be-1 as a concept at the 1985 Tokyo Motor Show, named it after the in-house project Plan B-1, and put it on sale in January 1987. It is the first of the Pike cars, a small family of design-led curiosities built by a special Nissan skunkworks nicknamed the Pike Factory. The line ran Be-1 in 1987, Pao and S-Cargo in 1989, and Figaro in 1991, so this is the one that kicked it all off. Under the soft, rounded bodywork with its friendly round-eyed face it is a first-generation Micra, sold at home as the March, and that honesty is half of the appeal.

Slow, and proud of it

Do not come here for pace. The Be-1 runs a 987cc MA10S four, a plain little one-litre carburettor engine making about 52 PS, sending the lot to the front wheels through a three-speed automatic or a manual. At roughly 700 kg it is light enough to potter around town quite happily, then run clean out of puff the moment the road tilts uphill. It is the automotive equivalent of a comfy pair of slippers, and judging it on lap times misses the entire point.

Four colours, four silly lovely names

Like the Figaro that came after it, the Be-1 left the factory in one of four soft pastel shades, each named as if off a greengrocer's shelf. Our own recovered production records show how the run split between them.

Pumpkin Yellow was far and away the popular pick at nearly half the whole run, which is why it is the face most people picture. If you want the rare one, Tomato Red is your car at only around 850 built.

Sold by lottery

Here is the headline. Nissan capped the run at 10,000 cars, then got buried under more than 10,000 orders, so buyers went into a ballot rather than a showroom. Our own records actually total 10,030 built, close enough to the famous round number. Either way it is a tiny production count, and that scarcity makes the Be-1 the rarest of the Pike cars and, for a lot of collectors, the most desirable of the family. Values have climbed for years now, and I see little sign of that stopping.

Buying one

Mechanically it is simple Micra running gear, so nothing under the bonnet should frighten a decent local mechanic. Rust is the real killer, as it is on any 35-year-old economy car that spent its early life through Japanese winters. Check the usual traps, the floors and sills, the wheel arches, and the metal around the seals if it has the optional canvas sunroof. The bigger headache is trim and body parts. So few were made that the Be-1-only pieces are genuinely hard to find now, so a tatty car can turn into a very slow restoration. Buy the straightest, most original example you can, because the body and the originality are where the value lives here, not the drivetrain.

Buy a Be-1 for what it is: the original design icon, the seed of the whole Pike idea, and a real slice of Nissan history that happens to make everyone at the servo smile. It will never be quick. It was never trying to be.